⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-06

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

pepetla.

Headword: 
pepetla.
Principal English Translation: 

to groom oneself, or to groom someone else; also, to stroke, pat, or pet someone or something (see Karttunen and Molina)

IPAspelling: 
pehpetɬɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

pepetla. nino. (pret. oninopepetlac.) peynarse o cosa semejante.
pepetla. nite. (pret. onitepepetlac.) peynar a otro, o halagarle trayendole la mano sobre la cabeza, y assentandole el cabello con ella.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 80v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

PEHPETLA vreft.vt to groom oneself; to groom someone or to stroke, pat, or pet something / peinarse (M), peinar a otro, o halagarle trayéndole la mano sobre la cabeza y asentándole el cabello con ella (M), lo acaricia (animal), lo alisa (Z) [(2)Zp.4,192]. See PETLĀN(I).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 191.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Achtopa conjxtlapoa: njman qujpepepetla in piltzintli = First they uncovered the face, then they fondled the head, of the child (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 192.