Papuan

[ pap-yoo-uhn ]

adjective
  1. of or relating to New Guinea or to Papua New Guinea.

  2. noting or pertaining to the Indigenous Black peoples of New Guinea.

  1. of or relating to any of the unaffiliated languages indigenous to New Guinea and other islands nearby, especially Timor, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Moluccas, and the Solomons.

noun
  1. a native or inhabitant of New Guinea or Papua New Guinea.

  2. any of the Papuan languages.

Origin of Papuan

1
First recorded in 1805–15; Papu(a) + -an

Words Nearby Papuan

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How to use Papuan in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for Papuan

Papuan

/ (ˈpæpjʊən) /


adjective
  1. of or relating to Papua or any of the languages spoken there

noun
  1. a native or inhabitant of Papua New Guinea

  2. any of several languages of Papua New Guinea that apparently do not belong to the Malayo-Polynesian family

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012