puna

American  

[poo-nah] / ˈpu nɑ /

noun

1. a high, cold, arid plateau, as in the Peruvian Andes.

2. Pathology. altitude sickness.

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puna British  

/ ˈpuna /

noun

1. a high cold dry plateau, esp in the Andes

2. another name for mountain sickness

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Etymology

Origin of puna

First recorded in 1605–15; from South American Spanish, from Quechua púna

Example Sentences

Step 1: Deep wells or puna are cleaned of dirt and debris so the sea water that enters them through underground channels is clean and conducive to salt making.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 3, 2024

On the puna, the more-than-two-mile-high sierra, the saffron moss took a little spring rain and greened.

From Time Magazine Archive

The symptoms of overwork are not wholly unlike those of the puna, and many young travellers who have felt the first, have ascribed them to the second.

From The Art of Travel Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Galton, Francis, Sir

We did not suffer from puna, or mountain sickness, which Bishop Sprat, of Rochester, mentions in 1650, and which Mr. Darwin—alas that we must write the late!—cured by botanising.

From To the Gold Coast for Gold A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Volume I by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

The northern part of this plateau is commonly called the puna; the southern part, the “desert of Lipez,” in character and appearance is part of the great Puna de Atacama.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 2 "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis" by Various