Meaning of wharepuni | Babel Free

Definitions

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

New-Zealand

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