Principal English Translation:
to be a certain way; thus, in this manner; it is similar, it is thus
Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, Nahuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period, Linguistics 85 (Los Angeles, University of California Publications, 1976), 135.
Orthographic Variants:
iui, ihu, yuh, yhui, yhuin, yui
Alonso de Molina:
iui. desta manera, o assi. aduerbio.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 44r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.
Frances Karttunen:
IHU(I) singular present and preterit only, plus derivations to be or become a certain way; thus, such, so / de ésta manera o así (M) Although this is transparently verbal with its present and regular preterit forms and the derived agentive IUHQUI ‘someone, something of a particular nature,’ it has been lexicalized in an essentially adverbial role of ‘thus, such, so.’ The operative phrase MĀ ZO IHUI ‘let it be so’ has been lexicalized as MĀCIHUI ‘though, however.’ Other particle compositions with IHU(I) are HUEL IHUI’ greatly, grandly, vigorously,´ ZAN YE NŌ IHUI ‘in like manner,’ IHUI ĪN ‘in this way,’ IHUI ŌN ‘in that way.’ The preterit form IUH is often misleadingly spelledd yuh.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 101.
Horacio Carochi / English:
ihui = particle, a certain way
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 502.
Attestations from sources in English:
yhuin ynn oquimitalhui pe prior fray Juo nonez = Thus said the father prior fray Juan Núñez (Culhuacan, 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, 14.
ca yhuin = for like this ... (something to follow)
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.
ihui = of this kind; in this way
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1887), 155.
ihui= an unreduced form of iuh
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), 220.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
Mayui nopiltzin = Así sea, mi pilli.
Historia Tolteca Chichimeca, 1976, 133. Trad. Luis Reyes García y Odena Güemes. Citado por León García Garagarza, Facebook, 2 Feb. 2022.