Meaning of wharepuni | Babel Free

Definitions

A large building in Maori communities for communal sleeping or for group meetings; a meeting house.

New-Zealand

Equivalents

Examples

“The dwellings of the chiefs are surrounded with enclosures of pole-fences; and the Whares and Wharepunis, some of them exhibiting very fine specimens of the Maori order⟳ of architecture, are ornamented with grotesque wood-carvings.”

“A notable recent event was the construction of a fourth wharepuni. These wharepuni are in themselves fully fledged meeting-houses, although the decoration inside is simple, in accordance with their function as dormitories.”

“Wharepuni increased greatly in size to the kinds of dimensions that would become⟳ common in the twentieth century.”

CEFR level