Word.ws English Dictionary

pohutukawa

UK/pəˌhuːtəˈkɑːwə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/poːˈhutukʌwʌ/

pohutukawa noun: a coastal evergreen tree, Metrosideros excelsa, native to New Zealand and producing a brilliant display of red flowers with prominent stamens around Christmastime.

pohutukawa: a coastal evergreen tree, Metrosideros excelsa, native to New Zealand and producing a brilliant...
Image: Abaconda Management Group from New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pohutukawa (plural pohutukawa or pohutukawas)

  1. A coastal evergreen tree, Metrosideros excelsa, native to New Zealand and producing a brilliant display of red flowers with prominent stamens around Christmastime.
    • I found in an old-fashioned garden overlooking the beach and the pohutukawa trees, the mulberry tree with leaves to feed our ‘charges’, and a kindly owner willing to give me supplies of leaves.1984, Janet Frame, An Angel at my Table, Virago, published 2024, page 279
    • On the map, this road ends with the representation of a sacred pōhutukawa tree.2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 12
    Synonyms:
    Christmas tree, New Zealand Christmas tree

Synonyms of pohutukawa

Forms of pohutukawa

pluralpohutukawa
pluralpohutukawas
alternative formpōhutukawa
alternative formpahutukawa

Origin of pohutukawa

Borrowed from Māori pōhutukawa.

Questions about pohutukawa

What does pohutukawa mean?
Pohutukawa means a coastal evergreen tree, Metrosideros excelsa, native to New Zealand and producing a brilliant display of red flowers with prominent stamens around Christmastime.
What part of speech is pohutukawa?
Pohutukawa is a noun.
How do you pronounce pohutukawa?
Pohutukawa is pronounced /poːˈhutukʌwʌ/ (New Zealand).
What is the plural of pohutukawa?
The plural of pohutukawa is pohutukawa.

Words near pohutukawa in the dictionary

  1. Pohrebky
  2. Pohrebyshche
  3. Pohribky
  4. POHS
  5. pohuehue
  6. pohutukawa
  7. pohutukawas
  8. poi
  9. Poiana
  10. Poiana Blenchii
  11. Poiana Cristei

Source and license

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