Meaning & use
wikiup
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablespecialist
A rounded or oval shelter built over a frame of poles covered with brush, reeds, grass or mats, used by some Native American peoples of the western United States.
Grammar: Usually has an article or plural: a wikiup, several wikiups.
Patterns
- a wikiup of something
- build a wikiup
The museum has a full-size wikiup made of willow poles and woven reed mats.
A family could put up a wikiup in a day using materials found near camp.
The guide pointed to the frame of an old wikiup half hidden by sagebrush.
Word forms
| plural | wikiups |
|---|
Common combinations
- build a wikiup
- The students learned how to build a wikiup from bent saplings.
- brush wikiup
- A brush wikiup kept the sun off but let air pass through.
- inside a wikiup
- It was cool inside the wikiup even at midday.
- wikiup frame
- The wikiup frame was tied together with strips of bark.
- traditional wikiup
- A traditional wikiup was easy to rebuild when a group moved camp.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wickiup
- Wickiup is the more common spelling of the same word, so it is the form you will most often find in books and maps.
- hut
- Hut is a general word for any small simple shelter, whereas wikiup names a specific dome-shaped, brush-covered type.
- wigwam
- Wigwam is used for similar dwellings of eastern and northern peoples and is better known, but it is not the western brush shelter that wikiup describes.
Word family
- wickiup noun
- the more usual spelling of wikiup
Commonly confused: wikiup or wigwam? wikiup or wiki?
wikiup vs wigwam
A wigwam is a dome or cone-shaped dwelling of eastern woodland peoples, often covered with bark; a wikiup is a western brush or mat shelter.
wikiup vs wiki
A wiki is a website that many users can edit; it has nothing to do with the hut despite the similar start.
Practice
Which description best fits a wikiup?
Choose one answer.
A wikiup is a small dome-shaped shelter framed with poles and covered with brush, reeds or mats. The other options are different kinds of structures.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “wikiup”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.