Word.ws English Dictionary

waka

/ˈwakə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/ˈwʌkʌ/

waka noun: a kind of classical Japanese poem.

Noun (1)

waka (plural wakas or waka)

  1. A kind of classical Japanese poem.
    • “Hey, look. There's one of those Jap waka poems on the back of this cigarette package.”1962, Philip K. Dick, “The Man in the High Castle”, in Four Novels of the 1960s, Library of America, published 2007, page 122

Noun (2)

waka (plural wakas or waka)

  1. (New Zealand) A Maori canoe.
  2. (New Zealand) A broad Maori community consisting of numerous Maori tribes, all sharing common ancestors thought to have come to New Zealand in a particular canoe. (A waka is divided into several iwi.)
    • On occasion this orientation would extend to wider tribal units […] or even to waka federations such as Tainui, Te Arawa or Mataatua.2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 235

Proper noun capitalized: Waka

Waka

  1. A female given name from Japanese.

Forms of waka

pluralwakas
pluralwaka

Plural of waka: wakas or waka

Origin of waka

Borrowed from Japanese 和歌 (waka), from Middle Chinese 和 (ɣwa), a gloss for 倭 (ʔwa, “Japan”) + 歌 (ka, “song”).

Borrowed from Māori waka.

Words formed from waka

Phrases with waka

Words that rhyme with waka

Questions about waka

What does waka mean?
Waka means a kind of classical Japanese poem.
What part of speech is waka?
Waka can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce waka?
Waka is pronounced /ˈwʌkʌ/ (New Zealand).
What is the plural of waka?
The plural of waka is wakas.

Words near waka in the dictionary

  1. wajib
  2. wajib saum
  3. wajib saums
  4. wajibs
  5. WAK
  6. waka
  7. waka ama
  8. waka gashira
  9. waka-jumper
  10. waka-jumpers
  11. waka-jumping

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: waka (page history and authors); Waka (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-waka.wav.

Cite this entry: “waka.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/waka. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.