Word.ws English Dictionary

Pakeha Maori

Pakeha Maori noun: someone of European descent who has adopted a Maori way of life.

Noun

Pakeha Maori (plural Pakeha Maoris or Pakeha Maori)

  1. (New Zealand, historical) Someone of European descent who has adopted a Maori way of life.
    • Of the original Pākehā Māori, Thomas Taylor was one of four crew members who ran away from the Sydney-based vessel Hunter in the course of a timber-gathering expedition up the Waihou River in 1798.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 105

Forms of Pakeha Maori

pluralPakeha Maoris
pluralPakeha Maori
alternative formPākehā Māori

Origin of Pakeha Maori

Borrowed from Māori pākehā Māori, itself made of pākehā (“a foreigner, a European”) and Māori.

Questions about Pakeha Maori

What does Pakeha Maori mean?
Pakeha Maori means someone of European descent who has adopted a Maori way of life.
What part of speech is Pakeha Maori?
Pakeha Maori is a noun.
What is the plural of Pakeha Maori?
The plural of Pakeha Maori is Pakeha Maoris.

Words near Pakeha Maori in the dictionary

  1. pakchoi
  2. Pakchon
  3. pake
  4. Pakefield
  5. pakeha
  6. Pakeha Maori
  7. pakehas
  8. Pakenham
  9. Pakenham South
  10. Pakenham Upper
  11. Pakenhams

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Pakeha Maori (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: “Pakeha Maori.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pakeha_maori. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.