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itta.

Headword: 
itta.
Principal English Translation: 

to see something or someone, to look at oneself; to inspect (see Molina, Karttunen, and Lockhart)

IPAspelling: 
ittɑ
Alonso de Molina: 

itta. nino. (pret. oninottac.) mirar me.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 43r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

itta. nonte. (pret. ononteittac.) yr avisitar a otro, o mirar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 43r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

itta. niqu. (pret. oniquittac.) hallar lo que se auia perdido, o lo que se procura y busca, o mirar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 43r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

(I)TTA vrefl, vt to look at oneself; to see something or someone / mirarme (M for first pers. sg. subject), ir a visitar a otro, o mirar a otro (M), hallar lo que se había perdido o lo que se procura y busca, o mirar a otro (M) This verb has an unusual internal geminate consonant. See ITHUA, (I)TZ-. (I)TTALŌ altern. nonact. (I)TTA (I)TTALTIĀ altern. caus. (I)TTA (I)TTŌ altern. nonact. (I)TTA
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 108.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

itta = to see
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), 504.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

(i)tta, niqu. to see; to inspect. Class 1: ōniquittac. 221
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), 221.

Attestations from sources in English: 

"By way of illustration, [Eduardo de la Cruz Cruz] noted that in ceremonial settings Nahua elders repeatedly direct the younger generation to pay close attention to the elders’ words and actions with the phrases xiquitta (watch this!) and xiyehyeco (observe and practice this!). In short, as de la Cruz Cruz sees it, Nahua science is the realm of experiential and ancestral knowledges acquired through observation and interaction with humans and other-than-humans alike, in both quotidian and ceremonial settings."
Indigenous Science and Technology: Nahuas and the World Around Them, ed. Kelly S. McDonough (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2024), 17.

In modern Huastecan Nahuatl we find the form tiitztihcac = "are you home?" This breaks down into ti- (you, singular), itz-, the combining form of the intransitive itta, used for situating things and talking about states. This verb is most often used with the -toc ending (the ligature -ti- plus the preterite as present "o" -- i.e. for someone or something to be in a certain state). Itztoc, "estar" for animals, humans, and divinities. The -ti- ligature is used with "ihcac", "to be standing," with verbes of state to talk about states of being that continue for a certain period of time. For example, mecehuia, "she sits down," mocehuihtoc, "she is seated," mocehuihtihcac, "she is still seated." So, itztihcac is how someone asks if anyone is at home. "Tocomaleh, tiitztihcac" = "Are you home, ma'am?"
Personal communication, John Sullivan, 2009.

Aun in jxqujch tlactl maceoalli, in tlatlatta = And all the common folk who looked on.... (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
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), 88.

nimitzittitia = I show it to you
Joe Campbell, Aztlan posting, 11/16/06.

ittitia = to show something to someone
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), 221.

Itta seems to be at the root of this: onpa titztihui = where we will go looking, i.e. the future
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

Could itta be at the root of this? ... otechmocnoytili = él accedió a pedir tierras para nosotros
Anneliese Monnich, "El Altepeamatl de Ocoyacac, México," Indiana 2 (1974), 169.

amo niquittaz yn oquichtli çã mochipa nichpochtli niez = I will not see a man. I will always see a maiden. (late seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 35.

in aca niquittaz in cihuatl çã mochipa nitelpochtli niezneq = I will see no woman. I want always to be a youth. (late seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 35.

Oquimotelique appears where oquimottilique ("they saw it") would be expected. And nechmotelis appears where nechmottiliz ("he is to see me") might be expected.
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 57.

A "special use [of on] with itta means to visit someone. Without the on, means to see someone."
Rebecca Horn's notes from Nahuatl classes with James Lockhart, now in the possession of Stephanie Wood.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

auh yniquac ya nicocoxtica niman niquilhui Juan auh yn yeh niman yc omocentali aoquic nechitaco = y cuando ya estaba embarazada luego le dije a Juan, y el de inmediato asi se quedo sentado, ya no me fue a ver (Tlaxcala, 1565)
Catálogo de documentos escritos en náhuatl, siglo XVI, vol. I (Tlaxcala: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala y el Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala, 2013), 46.

atlancopa ytztoc = mirando a la laguna (San Luis Huexotla, 1632)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 190–191.

in ahmo nimitzitta = que no te e visto
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana (Mexico: Henrico Martínez, 1611), 1.

itto = pasivo de itta (Tetzcoco, 1595)
Antonio del Rincón, Arte mexicana, reproducida digitalmente por el Internet Archive, http://archive.org/stream/artemexicana00rincrich/artemexicana00rincrich_....