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elcicihui.

Headword: 
elcicihui.
Principal English Translation: 

to sigh (see Molina and Karttunen), often paired with weeping; to be considered as good behavior (see attestations)

Orthographic Variants: 
elciciui
IPAspelling: 
eːlsihsiwi
Alonso de Molina: 

elciciui. n. (pret. onelciciuh.) sospirar.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 28v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

ĒLCIHCIHU(I) pret: ĒLCIHCIUH to sigh / suspirar (M) Z has YŌLNEHCIHU(I) with the same sense. See ĒL-LI, (I)HCIHU(I). ĒLCIHCIHUĪHUA nonact. ĒLCIHCIHU(I) ĒLCIHCIHUĪTIĀ caus. ĒLCIHCIHU(I)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 77.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Sighing and weeping could be examples of good behavior in the view of the gods and could therefore earn one favors, such as a pregnancy: cujx otonelciciuh, cuij otonchocac = perhaps thou hast sighed? Perhaps thou has wept? (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), 141.

mochoqujlitinemj, melciciujtitinemj = They go about weeping, sighing (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), 8.

mjiecpa ivictzinco xelcicivi in iooalli, in ehecatl = Sigh many times unto the night, the wind (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), 95.

themes: 
Emotions