🏺 An ancient culture 🎲 A board game

wari

1 9.1

A traditional African two-player board game played by moving seeds and counting

noun

: wari

Many people enjoy the challenge and strategy involved in a game of wari.

Examples

They played wari after dinner.
Children in the village gathered to play wari under the shade of a large tree.
He taught his friends how to play wari using a homemade wooden board.
Do you know how to play wari?
Many families in Africa gather to play wari during the weekends as a way to bond and enjoy their time together.
The children learned how to play wari from their grandparents, who taught them the traditional rules of the game.
At the festival, there were several wari boards set up for visitors to try their hand at this ancient game.

Synonyms

mancala

vswari

1 8.7

A board game where players move stones or seeds to capture more than the other player

is a single African variant played by two people using counting and strategy

Surface Forms

wari singular

waris plural

Etymology

The word wari is the West African name for a family of seed-counting board games, the same type often called mancala. Think of moving little 'seeds' from hole to hole to win — that clear picture helps explain why wari means this two-player strategy game today.