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.
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
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 Frazer, James George, Sir
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 Craik, George Lillie
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 Marquesan term for a god was the usual Polynesian word atua or, as it is sometimes spelled, etua.
From The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Vol. II by Frazer, James George, Sir
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.
