teepee

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A cone-shaped tent traditionally used by many native peoples of the Great Plains of North America.
  2. A conical formation of small flammable sticks leaning on each other, in roughly the shape of an Indian teepee, built over smaller tinder such as cotton or leaves.
verb
  1. Alternative form of TP (“to cover with toilet paper”).
noun
  1. Alternative form of TP (“toilet paper”).

Pronunciation

/ˈtiːpi/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-teepee.wav

Word forms

teepee teepees tepee tipi teepeeing teepeed

Etymology

From the Lakota word thípi (/ˈtʰipi/), which consists of two elements: the verb thí (“to dwell”), and pi, a pluralising enclitic (a suffix-like ending that marks the subject of the verb as plural), which means they dwell. Lakota verbs can be used as nouns and this is the case with thípi, which in practice simply means house.

Derived words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.