tentli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

tentli.

Principal English Translation:

the lip(s), the mouth; the voice; word(s); the border, the edge

IPAspelling:

teːntɬi

Alonso de Molina:

tentli. los labrios, o el borde, o orilla de alguna cosa.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 99v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

TĒN-TLI lip, mouth, edge, and (by extension) word / los labios, o el borde, o orilla de alguna cosa (M).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 226.

Attestations from sources in English:

See some of our additional entries beginning with ten-, which can show the broader reading of tentli as mouth, not just lips. Some hieroglyphs also seem to emphasize the jaw.

motenholcupinticac = her lips are painted with rubber
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 102.

ca mocamacpa oallatoa, ca tiiten ca tiicamachal, ca tiinenepil = he speaketh forth from thy mouth. Thou art his lips, thou art his jaw, thou art his tongue (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), 52.

amo popoloc, amo tentzitzipi, amo tentzitzipitlatoa = neither one who stammered, nor [one who talked] as if his tongue were pierced for a ring; nor one with welts on his tongue (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), 65.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

nelli yten ytlatol = en verdad es su voz y su palabra (Tlatelolco, 1573)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 89.

themes:

Anatomy

Speech, Speaking, Oral Tradition