Word.ws English Dictionary

whakapapas

whakapapas is the plural of whakapapa.

Meaning of whakapapa

Noun

whakapapa (usually uncountable, plural whakapapas)

  1. (New Zealand, usually) Genealogy, as a fundamental principle of Māori culture that is critical in establishing one's identity.
    • What are you crying for? asks the Kati Kahukunu (he's probably my 23rd cousin but we haven't swapped whakapapa yet).1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 98

Questions about whakapapas

What is whakapapas the plural of?
Whakapapas is the plural of whakapapa.

Words near whakapapas in the dictionary

  1. whaikorero
  2. Whaingaroan
  3. whaitsiid
  4. whaitsiids
  5. whakapapa
  6. whakapapas
  7. Whakatane
  8. Whakatāne
  9. Whaker
  10. Whakers
  11. Whal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whakapapas (page history and authors); whakapapa (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: “whakapapas.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whakapapas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.