wigwam means A dwelling having an arched framework overlaid with bark, hides, or mats, used by Native Americans in the northeastern United States. Lexicurio rates it Distinctive — a strength score of 64 out of 100.
Why this word is great
WIGWAM — [Noun] A domed or arched dwelling, traditionally constructed with a frame of poles overlaid with bark, hides, or mats, used by certain Indigenous peoples of North America. From Eastern Abenaki *wìkəwαm* or Penobscot *wigwom* ("house"), from Proto-Algonquian *wi·kiwa·ʔmi* ("house"). Unlike a tepee—a conical, portable tent of the Plains—or a hut—a generic term for crude shelter—the wigwam is a deliberate architecture of home, a semi-permanent curve born of deep relationship with the Eastern woodlands. It is the scent of birch-bark warming in the sun, the precise lattice of saplings lashed with spruce root, and the enveloping gloom where firelight dances on woven walls—a testament that shelter is not merely cover, but the first shape given to a sense of place.
noun
- A dwelling having an arched framework overlaid with bark, hides, or mats, used by Native Americans in the northeastern United States.
- Any more or less similar dwelling used by indigenous people in other parts of the world.“Their houſes or wigwams, which they call carbets, are built as I have already deſcribed thoſe of the negroes; but inſtead of being covered with the leaves of the manicole-tree, they are covered with the leaves of rattans or jointed canes, here called tas, which grow in cluſters in all marſhy places: [...]”
verb
- To dry (flax or straw) by standing it outside in the shape of a wigwam.