atua

British  

/ ˈɑːtuːə /

noun

1. a spirit or demon

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Etymology

Origin of atua

Māori

Example Sentences

Even the priest was puzzled, this, he said, was clearly a deceitful spirit, or atua, like those of which Porphyry complains, like most of them in fact. 

From Cock Lane and Common-Sense by Lang, Andrew

Marsden, on asking a New Zealander what he conceived the atua to be, was answered—"An immortal shadow."

From John Rutherford, the White Chief by Craik, George Lillie

An interesting instance of this is given in Colenso's Maori Lexicon as illustrated by the meaning of the Maori word atua.

From Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism by Ellis, Havelock

The Society-Islanders had their day-born gods, but they were not supposed to be "of equal antiquity with the atua fauau po, or night-born gods."

From A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Thoreau, Henry David

The objects of worship among the Tahitians, next to the atua or gods, were the oramatuas tiis or spirits.

From The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Vol. II by Frazer, James George, Sir