Word.ws English Dictionary

tlachtli

tlachtli noun: a ceremonial ball game once played by the Aztecs; evolved into the ulama game.

Noun

tlachtli (usually uncountable, plural tlachtlis)

  1. (historical, usually) A ceremonial ball game once played by the Aztecs; evolved into the ulama game.
    • The object of tlachtli was to keep the rubber ball from touching the ground while trying to push it to the opponent's endline.2000, Phyllis Barkas Goldman & John Grigni, Monkeyshines on Ancient Cultures
  2. (countable, historical, usually) The high-walled court in which this game was played.

Forms of tlachtli

pluraltlachtlis

Origin of tlachtli

Borrowed from Classical Nahuatl tlachtli.

Questions about tlachtli

What does tlachtli mean?
Tlachtli means a ceremonial ball game once played by the Aztecs; evolved into the ulama game.
What part of speech is tlachtli?
Tlachtli is a noun.
What is the plural of tlachtli?
The plural of tlachtli is tlachtlis.

Words near tlachtli in the dictionary

  1. TL;NR
  2. TLA
  3. Tla-o-qui-aht
  4. TLAC
  5. Tlacaxipehualiztli
  6. tlachtli
  7. tlachtlis
  8. tlaco
  9. Tlacoachistlahuaca
  10. Tlacopan
  11. tlacos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tlachtli (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “tlachtli.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tlachtli. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.