Word.ws English Dictionary

waitoreke

waitoreke noun: a cryptid of New Zealand, said variously to be a mammal resembling an otter, platypus or beaver, and to live in rivers.

Noun

waitoreke (plural waitoreke)

  1. A cryptid of New Zealand, said variously to be a mammal resembling an otter, platypus or beaver, and to live in rivers.

Forms of waitoreke

pluralwaitoreke

Origin of waitoreke

Borrowed from Māori. The etymology is disputed. The first syllable is probably from Proto-Eastern Polynesian *wai (“water”), from Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *wai, from Proto-Polynesian *wai, from Proto-Oceanic *waiʀ, from Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *waiʀ, from Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *waiʀ, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahiʀ. Māori toreke (“be left behind, forsaken”) can be found in dictionaries.

Questions about waitoreke

What does waitoreke mean?
Waitoreke means a cryptid of New Zealand, said variously to be a mammal resembling an otter, platypus or beaver, and to live in rivers.
What part of speech is waitoreke?
Waitoreke is a noun.
What is the plural of waitoreke?
The plural of waitoreke is waitoreke.

Words near waitoreke in the dictionary

  1. waitlister
  2. waitlisters
  3. waitlisting
  4. waitlists
  5. Waitman
  6. waitoreke
  7. Waitotaran
  8. waitpeople
  9. waitperson
  10. waitpersons
  11. waitress

Source and license

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