quimilli.

Headword: 
quimilli.
Principal English Translation: 

a counter (equivalent to 20); a bundle

Orthographic Variants: 
qujmilli
IPAspelling: 
kimilli
Frances Karttunen: 

QUIMIL-LI bundle of clothes, blankets / lío de mantas, o de ropa (M) [(6)Bf.5r,5v,7r,(4)Tp.200]. M has quimili without the geminate, but elsewhere it behaves as a regular stem ending in L followed by the -LI form of the absolutive suffix.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 211.

Attestations from sources in English: 

V. quimilli chicuematl. C. V. quimilli nanamatl.

In tlacaquimilli, in tlacacacaxtli, oitlan tonac otoconmama. Inin tlatolli, itechpa mitoaya: in aquin tlatocatlalili, azo tecuteco. = A bale of people, a cargo of people, you have taken upon you and loaded on your back. This phrase was said of someone who had been instated as king and ruler.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 172–173.

The Florentine Codex, for example in Book 6, uses the pairing of quimilli and cacaxtli when speaking of the role of governing, of taking care of the people and the altepetl: tiqujmjle, ticacaxe = the one with the bundle, the carrying frame (tiquimile, ticacaxe)
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). See, for example, Chapter 34, 184.

auh in oconquetzteoaque in vei qujmjlli, in vei cacaxtli, in vei tlamamalli, in tlatconj = They departed leaving the large bundle, the large carrying frame, the great burden, the subjects (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), 22.

tehoatl itlan tonaquj in vei qujmilli, in vei cacaxtli, in tlatconj, in tlamamalonj = Thou art to devote thyself to the great bundle, the great carrying frame, the governed (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), 48.

ma ximuchichioa ma itlan xaquj in qujmjlli, in cacaxtli = prepare thyself, put thy shoulder to the bundle, to the carrying frame (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), 49.

tiqujmjle, ticacaxe tiez, tehoatl timalacaioaz, tehoatl tecauhiooaz, ticeoalloaz: motlan mocalaqujz in cujtlapilli, in atlapalli = thou art to be the one with the bundle, the carrying frame. Thou art to be the umbrage, thou art to be the shade, the shadow, beneath which the vassals are to enter (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), 184.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Auh yn tilmatli nicpia equimilli yasca catca yn notlaçotatcin = Y los tres líos de mantas que yo tengo en guarda, que mi padre dejó (Xochimilco, 1572)
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), 160–161.

Cuando se cuenta por veintenas, se usan tres desinencias, según los casos: tecpantli, ipilli, y quimilli. Quimilli se usa sólo para ropa: cenquimilli, onquimilli, yequimilli, etc., 20, 40, 60 trajes, etc.
Rémi Siméon, Diccionario de la lengua náhuatl o mexicana (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1988), xlvi, xlvii.