Word.ws English Dictionary

purau

purau noun: a Polynesian shrub or small tree, Hibiscus tiliaceus, having yellow flowers and a fibrous bark.

Noun

purau (plural puraus)

  1. A Polynesian shrub or small tree, Hibiscus tiliaceus, having yellow flowers and a fibrous bark.
    • The trees that came within our knowledge were the manchineal and a species of purow […].1790, William Bligh, A Narrative of the Mutiny
    • In the whole length of the single shoreside street, with […] its grateful shade of palms and green jungle of puraos, no moving figure could be seen.1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne, The Wrecker, Prologue 2

Forms of purau

pluralpuraus
alternative formpurao
alternative formpurow

Origin of purau

From Tahitian pūrau.

Questions about purau

What does purau mean?
Purau means a Polynesian shrub or small tree, Hibiscus tiliaceus, having yellow flowers and a fibrous bark.
What part of speech is purau?
Purau is a noun.
What is the plural of purau?
The plural of purau is puraus.

Words near purau in the dictionary

  1. Puranthaba
  2. purao
  3. puraque
  4. puraques
  5. Purasati
  6. purau
  7. puraus
  8. purba
  9. Purba Bardhaman
  10. Purba Medinipur
  11. purbas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purau (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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