Wiktionary
n. A table-top mountain or mesa found in the Guiana Highlands of South America, especially in Venezuela.
Wikipedia
A tepui , or tepuy , is a table-top mountain or mesa found in the Guiana Highlands of South America, especially in Venezuela and western Guyana. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the Gran Sabana.
Tepuis tend to be found as isolated entities rather than in connected ranges, which makes them the host of a unique array of endemic plant and animal species. Some of the most outstanding tepuis are Neblina, Autana, Auyantepui and Mount Roraima. They are typically composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian quartz arenite sandstone that rise abruptly from the jungle, giving rise to spectacular natural scenery. Auyantepui is the source of Angel Falls, the world's tallest waterfall.
Usage examples of "tepui".
The mountains in the distance squat atop the Grand Tepui, plateaus piled upon plateaus, and protect the entire elevated region from the cold northerly winds.
Between the Lake of the Serpents and the southern end of the Grand Tepui lies the south-central lake, called the Lake of Butterflies, or Lake Akuena.
In all, there are six lakes on the Grand Tepui, the largest of them being the Lago Centrale, or Central Lake, which connects with the Lake of the Serpents by a narrow strait.
The gap between Pico Poco and the Grand Tepui, at its narrowest, was one hundred feet.
Gray and white billows capped the prow, and the rest of the massive tepui fell back in the shadows of rank after rank of thick dark clouds, filling the horizon.
Then he remembered that the Army had restricted access to the tepui, especially to Indians.
Tortured dark clouds hurried above the tepui again, frantic with rain, swooping sunset shadows over the outlines of faces and creatures Peter kept seeing in the rocks.
Jimmie Angel actually did crack up an airplane on Auyan Tepui, and may have been the first human of European descent to see the falls that bear his last name.
I first went up the rivers to the tepuis when I was thirty-one yearss old, in the expedition of Colonel Fawcett himself.
These were the famous toothed birds, Peter realized, smallest of the avisaurs, unique to the tepuis, the only ones of their kind in captivity.
The cloud flowed aside for a moment and Peter saw the sun setting over distant tepuis, limning their silhouettes like the hulks of ancient ships carved from dirty ice.
Venezuela, and the tepuis are real, but they are much smaller than either Doyle or I have described them, and none of them has dinosaurs.