iwi
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of iwi
Māori, literally: bone(s)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It is believed that Gordon Augustus Thomson, who travelled from Belfast to Hawaii in 1840, had removed iwi kūpuna from burial caves and donated them to Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society in 1857.
From BBC • Apr. 28, 2025
Eventually, New Zealand’s government faced the country’s iwi, or tribes, over the colonial theft of their land.
From National Geographic • Oct. 4, 2023
Three weeks after wildfires burned through Lahaina, the search for human bones — or iwi, as they are known in Hawaiian — has wrapped up, and officials are shifting to clearing toxic debris.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 31, 2023
A spokeswoman for Ngai Tahu, the main iwi of New Zealand’s South Island, said it had nothing to do with the incident.
From New York Times • Oct. 26, 2022
O moe hewa na iwi i ke alanui, alanui.
From Unwritten Literature of Hawaii The Sacred Songs of the Hula by Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
