kawakawa

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Maori kawakawa.

Noun

kawakawa (countable and uncountable, plural kawakawas)

  1. Alternative form of kiwikiwi (“star fern”) (Blechnum fluviatie)
  2. A false albacore, a fish of species Euthynnus affinis.
  3. Piper excelsum (syn. Macropiper excelsum), a shrub endemic to New Zealand.

Translations

Maori

Etymology

From its supposed resemblance to Proto-Polynesian *kawa (“bitter ginger; bitter; kava”), duplicated to indicate similarity (thus, cognate with Hawaiian ʻawa, Tongan kava and Samoan ʻava).[1][2] Further derived from Proto-Oceanic *kawaʀ (“potent root”) metathesis of Proto-Oceanic *wakaʀ (“root”), thus doublet of aka (“root”).

Noun

kawakawa

  1. kawakawa (Piper excelsum), a shrub endemic to New Zealand.

References
  1. Tregear, Edward (1891) Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary‎, Wellington, New Zealand: Lyon and Blair, page 139
  2. “Kawa, Kawakawa”, in Te Māra Reo‎, Benson Family Trust, 2023

Maranao

Noun

kawakawa

  1. loose soil
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.