atua
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of atua
Māori
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.
But though "god" is the nearest English equivalent of the word atua, we must beware of assuming that the Maori idea of godhead coincided with ours.
From The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Vol. II by Sir James George Frazer
In Tikopia the ghosts of dead ancestors and relatives as well as animals are atua and this connotation of the word appears to be general in other parts of Polynesia.
From Man, Past and Present by Alfred Court Haddon
Among themselves, the New Zealanders appear to have a great variety of other gods, besides the one whom they call emphatically the atua.
From John Rutherford, the White Chief by George Lillie Craik
Here odooa is the Polynesian word which is usually spelled atua.
From The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Vol. II by Sir James George Frazer
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 Havelock Ellis
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.
