ochpana.

Headword: 
ochpana.
Principal English Translation: 

to card, to sweep, to weed; and, more figuratively, to remove the bad from the good

Orthographic Variants: 
ochpāna
IPAspelling: 
otʃpɑːnɑ
Frances Karttunen: 

OCHPĀN(A) vt to sweep something / lo barre (Z) [(2)Zp.19,14]. M has an entry chpana 'to sweep' requiring the prefix TLA- and yielding TLACHPĀN(A). See (I)CHPĀN(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 176.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Drawing from Sullivan, Peterson suggests a figurative meaning of "lead the way" or "to precede," and therefore "could refer to events that initiate, such as to birth or to ancestry."
Jeanette Favrot Peterson, Flora and Fauna Imagery in Precolumbian Cultures: Iconography and Function (1983), 126.

xochpana, xitlacujcuj, chico, tlanavac xitlavica, xitlateca = sweep; clean; arrange, order things (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), 33.

tochpanaz in vncan otlaqualoc = thou art to sweep the place where there has been eating (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), 124.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Auh ynin xuchimilli huel coochpanazque ypan tlatozque yn teteuhcti yehica ca yn iquac nican ualmohuica totlaçotatzitzinhuan padresme yc namico yn xuchitzintli yhuan yn tlachichihualo yn tlaqualneci yn teupan = Y dichas huertas se han de cuidar [sic] para las flores a la iglesia y para los Padres (Tetepango, Hidalgo, 1586)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 2, Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVI, eds., Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: Consejo Nacional de Ciencias Tecnología, 1999), 266–267.

themes: 
Agriculture, Gardens, Stockraising
Cleanliness, Orderliness