Word.ws English Dictionary

Tangaroa

Tangaroa proper noun: the god of the sea in Polynesian mythology, variously either the supreme deity or of status equal to Tane, and sometimes (e.g. in Samoan and Tongan traditions) revered as the creator god.

tangaroa: the god of the sea in Polynesian mythology, variously either the supreme deity or of status equal...
Image: dustinpsmith, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Tangaroa

  1. (Polynesian mythology) The god of the sea in Polynesian mythology, variously either the supreme deity or of status equal to Tane, and sometimes (e.g. in Samoan and Tongan traditions) revered as the creator god.
    • Among the very many varieties of banana and plantain only the plantain belonged to Tangaroa on account of its redness and the uprightness of its fruit. Bananas of all kinds belonged to Rongo. The very name of the plantain, uatu, the upright fruit, testified to the dignity of the eldest of the gods....1995, Johannes Carl Andersen, Myths and Legends of the Polynesians, Dover Publications, published 1928, page 378
    • Tangaroa is an important god to the Polynesians, appearing under several similar names. While many of the gods and goddesses in Polynesian literature are interrelated in families, Tangaroa is an independent deity. Tangaroa is a creator god and sometimes seen as the supreme being. In some stories...2021, David Seal, Sharon K. Smith, World Mythology, Wipf and Stock, unnumbered page
  2. (Maori mythology) The god of the sea, lakes and rivers, and of the creatures, especially fish, that live in them.

Examples of Tangaroa in a sentence

  • Among the very many varieties of banana and plantain only the plantain belonged to Tangaroa on account of its redness and the uprightness of its fruit.1995, Johannes Carl Andersen, Myths and Legends of the Polynesians, Dover Publications, published 1928, page 378:
  • Tangaroa is an important god to the Polynesians, appearing under several similar names.2021, David Seal, Sharon K. Smith, World Mythology, Wipf and Stock, unnumbered page:

Forms of Tangaroa

alternative formTakaroa

Words formed from Tangaroa

Questions about Tangaroa

What does Tangaroa mean?
Tangaroa means the god of the sea in Polynesian mythology, variously either the supreme deity or of status equal to Tane, and sometimes (e.g. in Samoan and Tongan traditions) revered as the creator god.
How do you use Tangaroa in a sentence?
Among the very many varieties of banana and plantain only the plantain belonged to Tangaroa on account of its redness and the uprightness of its fruit.
What part of speech is Tangaroa?
Tangaroa is a proper noun.

Words near Tangaroa in the dictionary

  1. Tanganyikans
  2. tangar
  3. tangara
  4. tangarana
  5. tangare
  6. Tangaroa
  7. Tangaroan
  8. tangas
  9. tangasaurid
  10. tangasaurids
  11. tangata whenua

Source and license

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