Word.ws English Dictionary

rangatira

rangatira noun: a hereditary Māori leader of a kinship group; a chieftain or high-born Maori.

Noun

rangatira (plural rangatiras)

  1. (New Zealand) A hereditary Māori leader of a kinship group; a chieftain or high-born Maori.
    • Stout commoners on the left side, and real rangatira on the right distaff side. A New Zealander through and through.1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 99
    • Defeated and captured rangatira became slaves, but they could regain their former status if they succeeded in escaping from their captors or eventually obtaining an honourable release.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 68

Forms of rangatira

pluralrangatiras

Origin of rangatira

Borrowed from Māori rangatira.

Questions about rangatira

What does rangatira mean?
Rangatira means a hereditary Māori leader of a kinship group; a chieftain or high-born Maori.
What part of speech is rangatira?
Rangatira is a noun.
What is the plural of rangatira?
The plural of rangatira is rangatiras.

Words near rangatira in the dictionary

  1. Rangamati District
  2. Ranganath
  3. Ranganatha
  4. Rangari
  5. rangas
  6. rangatira
  7. rangatiras
  8. rangatiratanga
  9. range
  10. range anxiety
  11. range extender

Source and license

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