meeting house

or meet·ing-house, meet·ing·house

[ mee-ting hous ]

noun

1. a house or other building for communal gathering, especially a place of Protestant worship. Common in Colonial America for both public business and religious worship, a meeting house today is usually a place of worship for Quakers, Mennonites, Mormons, or certain other nonconformist denominations.

meeting house

noun

1. the place in which certain religious groups, esp Quakers, hold their meetings for worship
2. Also calledwharepuni a large Māori tribal hall

Word History and Origins

Origin of meeting house¹

First recorded in 1625–35

Example Sentences

She said the Quaker religion remains prominent, with one of the oldest meeting houses in the USA "a lovely example of Welsh architecture of the early 18th Century".

From BBC

The downtown meeting house was built for the city by Faneuil in 1742 and was where Samuel Adams and other American colonists made some of the earliest speeches urging independence from Britain.

From Seattle Times

In the fire’s aftermath, the church has transformed two meeting houses into shelters.

From Seattle Times

“This is the generation that established the meeting house … and worshiped in that space.”

From Washington Post

The museum plans to recreate First Baptist’s original meeting house on the land where it once stood, said Gary, the museum’s director of archaeology.

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• gathering place