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.

tencualactli.

Headword: 
tencualactli.
Principal English Translation: 

saliva (see Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants: 
tēncualactli
IPAspelling: 
teːnkwɑlɑktɬi
Frances Karttunen: 

TĒNCUALAC-TLI saliva / babas (M), su saliva (T for possessed form) [(1)Tp.134]. X marks the vowel of the second syllable long in TĒNCUALCAX(I)-TL 'jaw.' See TĒN-TLI, TĒNCUĀTZIN.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 224.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

ma ticmocuitlahui in iztlactli, in tencualactli, ca amo ihuian yectli, amo ihuian cualli = cuídate del veneno, de la saliva, no es recto, no es bueno (La mentira, el engaño) (centro de México, s. XVI)
Josefina García Quintana, "Exhortación de un padre a su hijo; texto recogido por Andrés de Olmos," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 11 (1974), 170–171.