Word.ws English Dictionary

pounamu

pounamu noun: jade, nephrite.

Noun

pounamu (uncountable)

  1. (New Zealand) Jade, nephrite.
    • “They didn't exactly eat off pounamu plates, but they left quite a bit to us all.”1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 233
    • Over time, the hooks became increasingly stylized and now are a popular shape for decorative pounamu pendants called hei matau, the first word indicating that the matau is worn around the neck.2021 June 12, Charlotte Graham-McLay, “In New Zealand, the Fishhook Pendant Called Hei Matau”, in The New York Times

Forms of pounamu

alternative formpoenamu

Origin of pounamu

Borrowed from Māori pounamu.

Questions about pounamu

What does pounamu mean?
Pounamu means jade, nephrite.
What part of speech is pounamu?
Pounamu is a noun.

Words near pounamu in the dictionary

  1. poultrywomen
  2. poults
  3. Poulynoe
  4. POUM
  5. pounac
  6. pounamu
  7. pounce
  8. pounce upon
  9. pounce wheel
  10. pounce wheels
  11. pounceable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pounamu (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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