whare

Noun

whare (plural whare or whares)

1. (New Zealand) A Maori house or other building.
   • 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.1867, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, translated by Edward Sauter, “Ngawhas, and Puias; boiling springs, solfataras and fumaroles”, in New Zealand: Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History […]...
   • We were on the brow of the hill, and below us there was a whare roofed in with corrugated iron.1912, Katherine Mansfield, The Woman at the Store
2. (New Zealand, historical) A rough shack or hut built (by Europeans) using traditional Maori techniques; a workman's shack.
   • Many New Zealanders will know that a whare is a house. But in this context, the whare were being built for a summer hunting and gathering expedition. It was the 1880s, so timber houses also featured, but here the whānau were travelling to tribal lands and building makeshift whare to camp in.2014, Tina Makereti, “He Taonga te Reo: How ngā Kupu Māori Contribute to New Zealand Writing in English”, in Jolisa Gracewood, Susanna Andrew, editors, Tell You What: Great New Zealand Nonfiction...