⚠ Site currently under repair ⚠

Search Issues: Update 2026-08-17 - Repairs are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Some of our more complex, multi-field searches (such as the search field on our homepage and Search All Fields) are currently under repair and may not work as expected.

Thank you to all our users who emailed to alert us to the problem! We hope to have it repaired soon.

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

colihui.

Headword: 
colihui.
Principal English Translation: 

to bend, curve, turn

Orthographic Variants: 
coliui
IPAspelling: 
koːliwi
Alonso de Molina: 

coliui. (pret. ocoliuh.) torcerse, o acostarse la pared.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 24r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

CŌLIHU(I) for something to curve, turn / torcerse, o acostarse en la pared (M) [(2)Zp.37,146]. This is only attested in the construction CŌLIUHTOC. In one attestation Z marks no vowels long and in the other both the first and second. See CŌLOĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 40.

Attestations from sources in English: 

The root, "colli," means something bent or twisted. Coloa = to bend or twist something.
Eduardo de J. Douglas, In the Palace of Nezahualcoyotl: Painting Manuscripts, Writing the Pre-Hispanic Past in Early Colonial Period Tetzcoco, Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 212 n65.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

oncan colihui tlamelahua Atoncopa ompa onaci Apantenco niman occepa hualmocolohua yn nohuicpa = allí da la vuelta y va derecho hacia Atongo, que llega hasta Apantenco, y desde allí da la vuelta otra vez hacia mis tierras (Coyoacan, 1607)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 54–55.