quipu
/ˈkiːpuː
/ /ˈkwɪːpuː/noun
An ancient Inca device for recording information, consisting of variously coloured threads knotted in different ways.The quipus of the ancient Incas of Peru encoded a wide range of data about people, land, and crops for the government bureaucracy....
- These runners carried oral messages, small packages, or quipus (Incan counting devices made from strings with a series of knots in them) from village to village and from the capital to all parts of the empire.
- The Inca, who had no written language, used the quipu - a device made of a series of strings with colored knots - to record census findings and tallies of animal herds and other resources.
Origin
From Quechua khipu 'knot'.
- quarter cloth
- quarter column
- quarter-crack
- quarter cut
- quarter day
- quarterdeck
- quarterdecker
- quarter distance
- quarter-elliptic
- quarter-elliptical
- quarterer
- quarter evil
- quarter face
- quarter fee
- quarter-final
- quarter-finalist
- quarter-gallery
- quarter-galley
- quarter girth
- quarter girth measure
- quarter grain
- quarter ground
- quarter guard
- quarter-gunner
- quarter heel