Word.ws English Dictionary

Matariki

Matariki proper noun: the season, in late May or early June, when the Pleiades star cluster first rises, treated as the beginning of the new year by the Maori.

Proper noun

Matariki

  1. The season, in late May or early June, when the Pleiades star cluster first rises, treated as the beginning of the new year by the Maori.

Origin of Matariki

Borrowed from Māori Matariki, from Proto-Eastern Polynesian Proto-Eastern Polynesian *mataliki, from Proto-Eastern Oceanic Proto-Eastern Polynesian *mataliki. One Maori folk etymology claims it represents ngā + mata + o + te + ariki + o + Tāwhirimātea, meaning "the eyes of the [wind] god Tāwhirimātea". In Māori legend, the Pleiades star cluster which it is named after was from Tāwhirimātea's plucked eyes. Cognate with Hawaiian makahiki.

Questions about Matariki

What does Matariki mean?
Matariki means the season, in late May or early June, when the Pleiades star cluster first rises, treated as the beginning of the new year by the Maori.
What part of speech is Matariki?
Matariki is a proper noun.

Words near Matariki in the dictionary

  1. Mataram
  2. Matarazzo
  3. Matarazzos
  4. Matarese
  5. Matareses
  6. Matariki
  7. Mataronese
  8. Matars
  9. Mataró
  10. matas
  11. matasano

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Matariki (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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