The Collaborative International Dictionary
Teocalli \Te`o*cal"li\, n.; pl. Teocallis. [Mexican.] Literally, God's house; a temple, usually of pyramidal form, such as were built by the aborigines of Mexico, Yucatan, etc.
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin.
--Longfellow.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of teocalli English)
Usage examples of "teocallis".
Like a true queen she lay, with her plunder heaped high about her: silks, cloth-of-gold, silver braid, casks of gems and golden coins, silver ingots, jeweled daggers, and teocallis of gold wedges.
On we went past towns built upon piles fixed in the bottom of the lake, past gardens that were laid out on reeds and floated over the waters like a boat, past teocallis and glistening temples without number, through fleets of light canoes and thousands of Indians going to and fro about their business, till at length towards sunset we reached the battlemented fort that is called Xoloc which stands upon the dyke.
I gazed on them till I was bewildered, but all seemed as nothing when at length I saw the great temple with its stone gateways opening to the north and the south, the east and the west, its wall carven everywhere with serpents, its polished pavements, its teocallis decked with human skulls, thousands upon thousands of them, and its vast surrounding tianquez, or market place.
This city is the most marvellous place that I have seen in all my travels, though much of it is hidden in bush, for wherever the traveller wanders there he finds vast palaces of marble, carven within and without, and sculptured teocallis and the huge images of grinning gods.