⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-17 - Repairs are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

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.

metztli.

Headword: 
metztli.
Principal English Translation: 

leg of a person or of an animal (see Molina)

IPAspelling: 
metstɬi
Alonso de Molina: 

metztli. luna, o pierna de hombre o de animal, o mes.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 55v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Attestations from sources in English: 

in quauhtli imetz = the legs of the eagle (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 88.

in jmetzpan qujtlatlaliticatca: auh in jmemeialotzin, quemeca ic oqujmotetzaujli = the one who had placed him on her thigh, the one who with her milk had indeed strengthened him (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), 12.vmpa conana, ynic qujujca ichan, ynjc qujquazque: vmpa qujxexeloa, qujtetequj, qujueueloa: oc ie achto qujtonaltia in motecuçuma ce ymetz, mantiuh in qujujqujlia = There they took [the slain captive] up, in order to carry him to the house [of the captor], so that they might eat him. There they portioned him out, cutting him to pieces and dividing him up. First of all they reserved for Moctezumna a thigh, and set forth to take it to him. (16th century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 47.