Tupi

American  

[too-pee, too-pee] / tuˈpi, ˈtu pi /

Or Tupí

noun

Tupis, plural Tupi plural

1. a member of any of several related Indian peoples living in the valleys of various Brazilian rivers, especially the Amazon.

2. the language that was spoken in northern Brazil by the Tupi Indians, now extinct but formerly used as a lingua franca in Brazil during the 16th to 19th centuries.

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Tupi British  

/ tuːˈpiː /

noun

1. a member of a South American Indian people of Brazil and Paraguay

2. the language of this people, belonging to the Tupi-Guarani family

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Tupian
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• Tupi
  plural
• Tupis
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Tupi

First recorded in 1845–50

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Tupi Tupis

The carnauba palm's nickname in the Tupi indigenous language is the tree of thorns.

From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2024

Later that week, in Peruíbe, a town whose name means “river of sharks” in the Indigenous Tupi language, I meet a man who’s searching for mako to barbeque that day.

From National Geographic ● Jul. 17, 2023

The bird’s name comes from the Tupi Indian language of Brazil and means “devil bird.”

From New York Times ● May 4, 2023

Jesuit priests went as far as creating Nheengatu, a language based on the Tupi Indigenous language adapted with Portuguese words and grammar.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 1, 2022

The art is indigenous with the Amazonian Indians, but it is only the settled agricultural tribes belonging to the Tupi stock who practise it.

From The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Bates, Henry Walter

It is still an open question whether the Tupis and Guaranis who inhabit the vast region between the Amazon and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres are affined to them.

From The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America by Brinton, Daniel Garrison

For the banks of the river Paraguay and the steppes of the Bolivian Cordilleras are unquestionably the earliest traditional homes of both Tupis and Aymaras.

From The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America by Brinton, Daniel Garrison

The language of conversation is almost identical with that of Paraguay, though some words are used which are either peculiar to the Tupis or obsolete in Paraguay to-day.

From A Vanished Arcadia: being some account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767 by Cunninghame Graham, R. B. (Robert Bontine)

It is believed that they are distantly connected with the Tupis and Guaranis.

From The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb by Brinton, Daniel Garrison

Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis of Brazil.

From The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America by Brinton, Daniel Garrison