Māori words for feelings and emotions

Māori words for feelings include harikoa ‘happy’, pōuri ‘sad’, riri ‘angry’, mataku ‘scared’, māharahara ‘worried’, mokemoke ‘lonely’, ngenge ‘tired’ and whakamā ‘shy, embarrassed’. So happy in Māori is harikoa, and sad in Māori is pōuri. Feelings themselves are ngā kare ā-roto. To say how you feel, put kei te in front of the word: Kei te harikoa au. ‘I’m happy.’ Below are the words with the sense Te Aka Māori Dictionary gives each, how to say them, how to ask someone how they are feeling, and where Māori places the feelings in the body.

Updated 19 October 2026 · 6 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Māori examples play Papa Reo, the te reo Māori voice made by Te Hiku Media from recordings of native speakers.

Māori words for feelings

A vowel with a macron is held about twice as long, and wh is usually said like an English f. Ng is the sound in the middle of singer, even at the start of a word, as in ngenge. The sounds are set out in the Māori pronunciation guide.

Te Aka lists most of these as verbs or statives: words that describe a state the way a verb describes an action. That is why there is no word for am in Kei te pōuri au. ‘I’m sad.’ Many also work as nouns: riri is anger as well as angry, mataku is fear as well as afraid, and mokemoke is loneliness as well as lonely.

How to say how you feel

Kei te marks a state that is true right now. Put the feeling after it and the person last.

Tino in front of the feeling makes it stronger. To say not, start with Kāore, bring the person forward, and change kei te to i te, as in the last line.

For a feeling you have come to, rather than one you are in, use kua: Kua ngenge au. ‘I’ve got tired.’ and Kua hōhā au. ‘I’m fed up.’ Te Aka’s own example of hōhā uses it the same way: Kua hōhā noa mātou ki te huhua o te kōrero, “We are tired of the many stories”.

Asking how someone is feeling

The everyday question Kei te pēhea koe? ‘How are you?’ is also how you ask how someone is feeling, and the answer can be any word on this page. The other ways to ask and answer, including the forms for two people and for a group, are in common Māori phrases. To ask about one feeling, say it as a statement with a question in your voice:

Kaua e before a feeling means don’t. The course uses Kaua e whakamā. to encourage a guest, for example to have more food.

Whakamā

Whakamā is the word that most often needs explaining. Te Aka translates the verb as “to be ashamed, shy, bashful, embarrassed” and the noun as “shame, embarrassment”: one word where English has four. Te Aka’s first example is the everyday kind, someone who went to town in shorts and saw people staring at the scar on their leg: ka whakamā au, “I was embarrassed”. Why whakamā is often listed among the Māori words that have no single English equivalent, and the study of it by Joan Metge, are on Māori words with no English equivalent.

Where Māori places the feelings

English locates feelings in the heart. Māori has several words for the place feelings live, and Te Aka gives each a sense of its own:

• Ngākau: “seat of affections, heart, mind, soul”. It is the word most often paired with a feeling. Te Aka’s example for hari ‘to be happy’ is Ka hari tōna ngākau, “He will be happy”, literally his ngākau will be happy, and its entry ngākau pōuri means heavy-hearted, downcast.
• Manawa: the heart of a person, and also “heart (seat of affections)”, breath and patience. Te Aka quotes Ka pā te aroha ki te ngākau; ka hotu te manawa, “I’m affected by concern and my heart sobs”, with ngākau and manawa side by side. The body-part sense is in Māori body parts.
• Ate: the liver, and also “seat of emotions, heart”. Te Aka’s example, describing Ngata after his son and his wife had died, is Pākikini ana te ate o Ngata, which it translates “Ngata was devastated”.
• Whatumanawa: the kidney, and also “seat of emotions, heart, mind”.
• Hinengaro: “mind, thought, intellect, consciousness, awareness”. It leans to thinking rather than feeling, but Te Aka lists it beside ngākau and whatumanawa as words of the same kind.

The stomach, puku, turns up in feelings for a different reason. Te Aka gives it as an intensifier placed before or after a word, and its own example is pukuriri: riri ‘angry’ made stronger, so furious.

Words with two feelings in them

Several of these words carry a second sense that can surprise a learner:

Context decides which is meant. For excited, hiamo is the safer word: Te Aka gives hīkaka as rash, brisk, eager or overeager, and also as malicious or angry.

Feelings words in the classroom

Feelings words suit a classroom because the question and the answer can be the same every morning. A few ways to use them:

• Ask at roll call. Kei te pēhea koe? Each child answers with one word from the chart: Kei te harikoa au. Kei te ngenge au.
• Point and say. Draw faces for harikoa, pōuri, riri and mataku, and let children point to how they feel before they are ready to say it.
• Talk about someone else. Read a picture book and ask about a character: Kei te pōuri ia? Āe, kei te pōuri ia.
• Reassure. Kaua e whakamā. and Kaua e āwangawanga. are short enough for every day.

The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, which publishes wellbeing resources for schools, explains feelings through Te Whare Tapa Whā, a model it attributes to Sir Mason Durie and dates to 1984. It pictures health as a meeting house with four walls: taha wairua, spiritual wellbeing; taha hinengaro, mental and emotional wellbeing; taha tinana, physical wellbeing; and taha whānau, family and social wellbeing, with the whenua ‘land’ as its foundation. Feelings belong to taha hinengaro, which the Foundation describes as “your mind, heart, conscience, thoughts and feelings”.

Words for mental health and disability chosen to carry no stigma are in Te Reo Hāpai, the glossary behind the word for autism described in takiwātanga; its word for anxiety is different again from the two above. Feelings words are also learnt through waiata; some to start with are in Māori songs, and I love you and the other words of affection are in I love you in Māori. Every word in the table except manawa reka and hae is taught in Verbavia’s free te reo Māori course.

Sources

1. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: harikoa
2. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: koa (to be glad, joyful, happy)
3. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: koa (please)
4. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: manahau
5. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hiamo
6. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: manawa reka
7. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: pōuri
8. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: pāpōuri
9. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ngākau pōuri
10. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: riri
11. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: pukuriri
12. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: puku (intensifier; example pukuriri)
13. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: mataku
14. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tumeke
15. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: wehi (see also ka mau te wehi!)
16. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: māharahara
17. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: āwangawanga
18. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hōhā (with the example Kua hōhā noa mātou …)
19. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: mokemoke
20. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ngenge
21. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whakamā
22. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hae
23. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: aroha
24. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hari (to be happy)
25. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hari (to carry)
26. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: manawarū
27. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ihiihi
28. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hīkaka
29. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kare ā-roto
30. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ngākau
31. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: manawa
32. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ate
33. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whatumanawa
34. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hinengaro
35. Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand: Te Whare Tapa Whā