Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of numerous isolated, flat-topped mountains in the Guiana highlands of southeastern Venezuela, usually consisting of Precambrian sandstone and often towering over surrounding rainforests by up to 1,000 meters (3,280 feet).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A table-top mountain or mesa found in the Guiana Highlands of South America, especially in Venezuela.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[American Spanish, from Pemón (Cariban language of Venezuela) tëpui, second element in names of tepuis such as Auyantepui : tëk, tëpu-, stone (from Proto-Cariban tôpu-) + -i, suff. added to a noun indicating its possession by a possessor (from Proto-Cariban -rï).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Meaning "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran Sabana.

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Examples

  • Angel Falls er haedsti foss heims, fellur heilan kílómeter nidur af gígantísku bjargi sem er hluti af hinum fraegu "tepui" fjöllum.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2009

  • Standout scene: Muntz's pack of canines pursues Carl, who drags his airborne house via a hose, Russell, Kevin and Dug in a harrowing chase through the nooks and crannies of the flat-topped tepui mountains.

    Non-explosive entertainment can be just as enjoyable 2009

  • This one, up at IGN, is entitled Discovering a New World and focuses on Up's story and the Pixar crew's trip to the tepui mountains of Venezuela in South America to research the exotic location.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Mike 2009

  • Some examples are the tepui swift Cypseloides phelpsi in the montane evergreen forest, cliffs, rocky canyon, grasslands and savannas, the tepui goldenthroat Polytmus milleri in the forest edge, low seasonally wet grassland and scrub, and the tepui wren Troglodites rufulus on montane evergreen forest edge, elfin forest, scrub and savanna (Stattersfield et al. 1998; Bonaccorso, 2001).

    Canaima National Park, Venezuela 2009

  • The Associated Press (AP) has published an interview done recently with Up director Pete Docter and story supervisor Ronnie del Carmen about the now famous research trip to the exotic tepui mountains in Venezuela (and Brazil) and the inspiration provided by the 'lost world' landscapes found there.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Mike 2009

  • The first tepui summit was reached in 1884, and research on the area has continued ever since because of the diversity and richness of its species: 135 past research projects were noted by Castillo in 2005.

    Canaima National Park, Venezuela 2009

  • The tepui fauna is also diverse, with 186 mammal species.

    Canaima National Park, Venezuela 2009

  • And the cloud forest on the low tepui of Sierra de Lema is one of the most richly endemic areas in Venezuela.

    Canaima National Park, Venezuela 2009

  • And they are called Tepuis (singular: tepui), a word from the Pemón Amerindians.

    Suriname 2009

  • A tepui mountain has four distinct vegetation zones: base, talus slope, cliff foot and mountain summit.

    Canaima National Park, Venezuela 2009

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