Word.ws English Dictionary

atua

atua noun: a spiritual being in Polynesian culture; a god or demon.

Noun

atua (plural atuas or atua)

  1. (New Zealand) A spiritual being in Polynesian culture; a god or demon.
    • Nothing was taken from the domain of these atua without respect, propitiation and expressions of gratitude.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 127

Forms of atua

pluralatuas
pluralatua

Origin of atua

From Māori atua. Compare Tahitian atua, Samoan atua, Hawaiian akua.

Questions about atua

What does atua mean?
Atua means a spiritual being in Polynesian culture; a god or demon.
What part of speech is atua?
Atua is a noun.
What is the plural of atua?
The plural of atua is atuas.

Words near atua in the dictionary

  1. atty
  2. atty.
  3. Atty. Gen.
  4. Attymon
  5. ATU
  6. atua
  7. Atuami
  8. atuas
  9. Atul
  10. Atulayan
  11. Atum

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: atua (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “atua.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/atua. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.