iwi
/ˈiːwi/
iwi noun: an extended group of Maori kin groups or families, sharing common ancestry; a tribe. (An iwi is smaller than a waka and larger than a hapu.).
Noun
iwi (plural iwis or iwi)
- An extended group of Maori kin groups or families, sharing common ancestry; a tribe. (An iwi is smaller than a waka and larger than a hapu.)
- Through her, the women of my iwi are also beautiful, strong and powerful.1996, Diane Bell, Renate Klein, Radically speaking: feminism reclaimed, page 505
- Ngati Porou and the related iwi Ngāti Kahungunu were major tribes down the East Coast of the North Island.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 78
Forms of iwi
| plural | iwis |
|---|---|
| plural | iwi |
Origin of iwi
Borrowed from Māori iwi (literally “bone”), ultimately from Proto-Oceanic *suRi (“bone”).
Words that rhyme with iwi
Questions about iwi
- What does iwi mean?
- Iwi means an extended group of Maori kin groups or families, sharing common ancestry; a tribe. (An iwi is smaller than a waka and larger than a hapu.).
- What part of speech is iwi?
- Iwi is a noun.
- How do you pronounce iwi?
- Iwi is pronounced /ˈiːwi/.
- What is the plural of iwi?
- The plural of iwi is iwis.
Words near iwi in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: iwi (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “iwi.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/iwi. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.