popoca.

Headword: 
popoca.
Principal English Translation: 

to smoke (for smoke to come out of a volcano, for instance); or, for a comet to appear

Orthographic Variants: 
pupuca
IPAspelling: 
popoːkɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

popoca. (pret. opopocac.) hazer humo.
popoca. ni. (pret. onipopocac.) humear, echar humo desi.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 83r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

POPŌCA to smoke, to give off vapor / hacer humo (M), humear, echar humo de sí (M) R has POHPŌCA.as does Flor.codex See PŌC-TLI.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 203.

Update from author: Cf. the entry for pohpo:tic, in the Florentine Codex 6:2, there is a saltillo at the end of a form implying pohpoca:toc.

Attestations from sources in English: 

a comet is a star that smokes (popoca citlalin)
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 65.

i Acatl xihuitl. 1363. años yquac ypan in peuh yn popocatepetl in ye popoca = The year One Reed, 1363, the time when Pocacatepetl began to smoke (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 110–111.

opopocac Sitlalin yn ipocyo ytztoya yttech matlalCueyetzin = A comet appeared. Its tail faced toward Matlalcueye.
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 100–101.

in moteneva in chicavac, in vapavac, in tlatolli in mitoa in chichinauhtiuh, in pupucatiuh in nelhuillo in nemaco = what are called the strong, the harsh words, which are said, burned, gave off smoke; what was spoken what was given (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 237.

In popocatiuh, in chichinauhtiuh. Inin tlatolli, itechpa mitoaya: in aquin cenca chicaoac tlatolli ic tenonotza, ioan tecoco tlatolli = He is smoking, he is sizzling. This was said of the person who reprimanded others in very harsh words, words that stung.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 160–161.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Pupocatepel ça ca ye yuhqui pupocaticac = Popocatepetl estaba como humeando (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala and México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 356–357.

1664 ypan meztl de junio yn opeuhqui ynic pupoca yn tepetl Popocatzin huel tomahuac yni pocyo ynicpac quizaya = en el año de 1664, en el mes de junio empezó a humear la montaña Popocatzin, un humo grueso le salía de la cima (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala and México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 342–343.

themes: 
Celestial Phenomena