Word.ws English Dictionary

tangata whenua

UK/ˌtaŋətə fɛˈnʊə/

tangata whenua noun: local or indigenous people; specifically, the Maori.

Noun

tangata whenua pl (plural only)

  1. (New Zealand, plural, plural-only) Local or indigenous people; specifically, the Maori.
    • In the next two decades, however, the demographic, economic and political impact of the new colonists would transform the country in ways that the tangata whenua could never have foreseen.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 179

Origin of tangata whenua

Borrowed from Māori tangata whenua (“people of the land”).

Questions about tangata whenua

What does tangata whenua mean?
Tangata whenua means local or indigenous people; specifically, the Maori.
What part of speech is tangata whenua?
Tangata whenua is a noun.
How do you pronounce tangata whenua?
Tangata whenua is pronounced /ˌtaŋətə fɛˈnʊə/ (UK).

Words near tangata whenua in the dictionary

  1. Tangaroa
  2. Tangaroan
  3. tangas
  4. tangasaurid
  5. tangasaurids
  6. tangata whenua
  7. Tangbagouan
  8. tangbao
  9. tangbaos
  10. Tangcal
  11. Tangcarang

Source and license

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