Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

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

quequetza.

Headword: 
quequetza.
Principal English Translation: 

to pace about aimlessly, wasting time; to kick out at something in anger (See Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants: 
quehquetza
IPAspelling: 
kehketsɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

quequetza. nino. (pret. oninoquequetz.) espaciarse, o perder tiempo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 89r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

QUEHQUETZ(A) vrefl.vt to pace about aimlessly, wasting time; to kick out at something in anger / espaciarse, o perder tiempo (M), dar patadas de coraje (C) [(2)Cf.71v,128r,(2)Zp.7,171,(1)Rp.182]. Z has this in a phrase about ears standing up, a literal distributive sense of QUETZ(A). C contrasts QUEHQUETZ(A) with QUEQUETZ(A) 'to trample on something.' redup. QUETZ(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 208.

themes: 
Emotions
War, Conflict