Word.ws English Dictionary

pataka

pataka noun: a Maori storehouse for food, typically raised above the ground.

Noun (1)

pataka (plural pataka or patakas)

  1. (New Zealand) A Maori storehouse for food, typically raised above the ground.
    • The brown grass that Barry cut for us / With the new sickle, is lying in heaps / Between the house and the door of the pataka / Where we stuck our mattresses.1972, James K. Baxter, ‘Autumn Testament’, Selected Poems, Te Herenga Waka University Press 2023, p. 281

Noun (2)

pataka (plural patakas)

  1. (India) A firecracker; a small paper packet of coloured potash and pieces of kankar, exploding when thrown against a hard surface.

Forms of pataka

pluralpataka
pluralpatakas
alternative formphataka
alternative formpatakha

Origin of pataka

Borrowed from Māori pātaka.

Borrowed from Hindi पटाका (paṭākā), पटाखा (paṭākhā).

Questions about pataka

What does pataka mean?
Pataka means a Maori storehouse for food, typically raised above the ground.
What part of speech is pataka?
Pataka is a noun.
What is the plural of pataka?
The plural of pataka is pataka.

Words near pataka in the dictionary

  1. patagornithine
  2. patagornithines
  3. patail
  4. patails
  5. Patak
  6. pataka
  7. patakas
  8. patakh
  9. patakha
  10. patakhas
  11. Pataki

Source and license

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