: a device made of a main cord with smaller varicolored cords attached and knotted and used by the ancient Peruvians (as for calculating)
Examples of quipu in a Sentence
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Chilean activist, artist, and poet Cecilia Vicuña, known for her quipus—strands of knotted fibers that reference the ancient Andean communication system—has been named the winner of the 2025 Roswitha Haftmann Prize.
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News Desk, Artforum, 10 Oct. 2025
By the end of the project, which ran from 2016 to 2018, the quipu included 18 ropes of thread comprised of countless knots.
—Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2023
Items on display include an Incan quipu, a 19th-century parlor game featuring characters from Charles Dickens novels and a clay tablet from 3000-2030 BC.
—Lauryn Azu, Chicago Tribune, 2 Feb. 2023
In January the Peruvian Ministry of Culture gave the quipu national heritage status, hailing it as an ingenious legacy of the indigenous culture.
—National Geographic, 19 May 2020
Here are some notable ways the population was counted before the first U.S. census in 1790:
Incan Quipu: Instead of counting with tally marks, Incans lined up quipu or threads (made out of llama or alpaca, according to some sources).
—Olivia B. Waxman, Time, 22 June 2017
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News Desk, Artforum, 10 Oct. 2025
By the end of the project, which ran from 2016 to 2018, the quipu included 18 ropes of thread comprised of countless knots.
—Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2023
Items on display include an Incan quipu, a 19th-century parlor game featuring characters from Charles Dickens novels and a clay tablet from 3000-2030 BC.
—Lauryn Azu, Chicago Tribune, 2 Feb. 2023
In January the Peruvian Ministry of Culture gave the quipu national heritage status, hailing it as an ingenious legacy of the indigenous culture.
—National Geographic, 19 May 2020
Here are some notable ways the population was counted before the first U.S. census in 1790:
Incan Quipu: Instead of counting with tally marks, Incans lined up quipu or threads (made out of llama or alpaca, according to some sources).
—Olivia B. Waxman, Time, 22 June 2017
Cite this Entry
“Quipu.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quipu. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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