huitzoctli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

huitzoctli.

Principal English Translation:

a pointed oaken pole for levering sod loose or planting seeds (an agricultural implement)
James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 201.

Orthographic Variants:

uitzoctli, huitzouhtli

IPAspelling:

witsoːktɬi

Alonso de Molina:

uitzoctli. palanca de roble puntiaguda para arrancar cespedes y abrir la tierra.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 157v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

HUITZŌC-TLI hoe / palanca de roble puntiaguda para arrancar céspedes y abrir la tierra (M) [(3)Xp.101]. See HUITZ-TLI.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 91.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

sharp-pointed stick of hard wood for levering out and breaking sod...contains huitzli, thorn, something sharp-pointed
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 219.

Attestations from sources in English:

augtin ycnotl yteicauh di^o hernandez matlallihui oquicouh huitzoctli ypatiuh m^o = Agustín Icnotl, younger brother of Diego Hernández Matlalihui bought a digging stick; it cost half a tomín. (n.d., sixteenth century)
Testaments of Culhuacan (provisionally modified first edition), eds. Sarah Cline and Miguel León-Portilla, online version http://www.history.ucsb.edu/cline/testaments_of_culhuacan.pdf, 13.

themes:

Agriculture, Gardens, Stockraising

Technology, Tools

Wood, wooden material