Definition of "longhouse" []

• A long communal dwelling, especially of certain Native American, Polynesian, and Indonesian peoples. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Gist must have explained to him that the longhouse was the social, spiritual, and political center of many Indian communities."
• "Reichel-Dolmatoff wrote that the longhouse is a model of the cosmos, with each architectural element charged with symbolic meaning."
• "Outside the longhouse is a world apart, the place of nature and disarray."