moa
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of moa
Borrowed into English from Maori around 1810–20
Vocabulary lists containing moa
Australia and New Zealand - Introductory
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Australia and New Zealand - Middle School and High School
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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.
Colossal’s latest announcement was that it has hatched 26 chickens in an “artificial egg” — a “foundational step,” it said, “toward resurrecting extinct bird species” such as the New Zealand giant moa and the dodo.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
Do all Māori want the moa to return?
From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2025
Over the following centuries, the Native Hawaiians, or kanaka maoli, developed a complex, regenerative and self-sufficient agricultural system in their new home, and the moa proliferated.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 8, 2022
“It’s no mean feat, because it was a heck of a big bird,” Dr. Wroe said of moa, which could weigh up to 550 pounds.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2021
Salevao, the god of the rocks, observed motion in the moa or centre of the earth.
From Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before by George Turner
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.
