Meanings
- uncountableA board game, similar to pachisi, played by the Aztecs.
There is also the resemblance between the Hindu game of pachesi and the Mexica patolli, so close as to be virtually identical.
1992, Olive Patricia Dickason, Canada′s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, page 612 more examples
Mesoamericans played a game called patolli, which has been likened to parcheesi.[…]Post-Conquest accounts also indicate patolli had religious meaning, and calendrical, numerological, cosmological, and astronomical symbolism determined the rules of play.
1994, Edwin C. Krupp, Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations, published 2003, page 294Patolli is a Mesoamerican game so similar to South Asian pachisi that many anthropologists considered it evidence of a precolonial contact between the peoples of the Old and New Worlds (Figure 5.2).
2002, Sally E. D. Wilkins, Sports and Games of Medieval Cultures, page 156
Origin
- Classical Nahuatlpatōlli
- Englishpatolli
Borrowed from Classical Nahuatl patōlli.
More words from Classical Nahuatl
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Spanish patole
- patoleboard game
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
patolli. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patolli
“patolli.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patolli. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “patolli,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patolli.
Source: patolli on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.