Māori words in New Zealand English, and what they mean

New Zealand English has borrowed hundreds of Māori words, and the average New Zealander knows seventy or eighty of them: kia ora ‘hello, thanks’, whānau ‘family’, kai ‘food’, mahi ‘work’, hui ‘meeting’. This guide groups them by where you meet them, gives each one its meaning in te reo Māori, and says how it is used in English, including the words that carry more weight than a one-word translation suggests.

Updated 5 October 2026 · 10 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.

Which Māori words do New Zealanders use?

Mostly words for things English has no exact word for: family and kinship, the marae and its ceremonies, the land, food, and a handful of greetings. Dianne Bardsley, writing in Te Ara, the encyclopedia of New Zealand, calls the incorporation of Māori words ‘one of its most distinctive features, distinguishing it from all other forms of English’, and notes that New Zealanders use words like mana ‘prestige, authority’ and taonga ‘treasure’ without explaining them.

Researchers have measured how many there are. John Macalister’s studies of New Zealand newspapers, School Journals and parliamentary records found about 8.8 Māori words in every thousand words of text, and estimated that the average New Zealander knows between 70 and 80 Māori words, not counting place names and other proper nouns. That is a small vocabulary, and it is the one this guide sets out.

It is also a different kind of borrowing from the French and German words in French words used in English. Those came from languages spoken on the other side of the world. Māori words come from a language spoken in the same towns, by people who will notice when one is used carelessly, so it is worth knowing what each one really means.

Greetings and sign-offs

These are the words a newcomer meets first, often in the first email of a new job.

Word	Meaning	How it is used in NZ English
kia ora	hello; thank you; literally ‘be well’	The all-purpose greeting, spoken or at the top of an email: ‘Kia ora Sam’. It also means thanks, and is said as agreement.
mōrena	good morning	A friendly morning greeting. It is itself a loanword, from English ‘morning’.
tēnā koe	greetings to you (one person)	A more formal greeting. tēnā koutou greets three or more people.
ngā mihi	acknowledgements, best wishes	A common way to sign off an email, close to ‘kind regards’.
nāku noa, nā	yours sincerely; literally ‘it is just me’	A sign-off for a letter or email, followed by your name.
haere rā	goodbye, said to someone leaving	Said by the person staying behind.
noho ora mai	stay well, goodbye, said to someone staying	Said by the person leaving.
ka kite anō	see you again	An informal goodbye, often cut to ka kite.
kia kaha	be strong, keep going	Encouragement before something hard, or support after bad news.

Two things are worth knowing. Tēnā koe changes with the number of people you greet, which Māori greetings explains in full. And goodbye depends on who is leaving: the person going says noho ora mai ‘stay well’, and the person staying says haere rā ‘goodbye’. Ka kite anō is a shortening of the sentence Ka kite anō au i a koe ‘I’ll see you again’.

People and family

Word	Meaning	How it is used in NZ English
whānau	extended family; also ‘to be born’	Family in the wide sense, cousins, aunts and grandparents included. It can also address a group, and in modern use can include close friends.
tamariki	children	Children. One child is tamaiti.
mokopuna	grandchild, grandchildren; descendant	Grandchildren, and descendants more widely.
kuia	elderly woman, grandmother, female elder	A respected older woman.
koro	elderly man, grandfather	Grandad; also a way to address an older man.
kaumātua	elder	An elder: a person of standing within the whānau.
whaea	mother, aunt	Used in many schools for a female teacher.
iwi	tribe, people	A large kinship group descended from a common ancestor and tied to a territory.
hapū	subtribe; pregnant	A section of an iwi. The same word means pregnant, so context matters.
Pākehā	New Zealander of European descent	The usual word for a non-Māori New Zealander of European descent.
tangata whenua	local people, hosts, indigenous people	Māori as the people of the land, or the hosts of a particular place.

Tangata whenua repays a closer look. Te Aka Māori Dictionary explains it as people born of the whenua, and whenua means both land and placenta: the land where a people’s ancestors lived and where their placenta are buried.

Food

Word	Meaning	How it is used in NZ English
kai	food, a meal; to eat	Food of any kind: ‘bring a plate of kai’, ‘kai time’.
puku	stomach, belly	Belly, usually affectionately: a full puku, a rumbling puku.
hāngī	earth oven; food cooked in it	Food steamed in a pit over heated stones, and the meal itself.
kūmara	sweet potato	The usual New Zealand word for sweet potato.
kai moana	seafood, shellfish	Seafood and shellfish.
pāua	abalone	The shellfish, and its shell.
wharekai	dining hall	The dining hall on a marae; also a café or restaurant.

Work and the workplace

These are the Māori words you are most likely to meet in a New Zealand meeting invitation or team email.

Word	Meaning	How it is used in NZ English
mahi	work, job; to work	Work in general: ‘great mahi’, ‘a lot of mahi to get through’.
hui	meeting, gathering	Any meeting, from a team catch-up to a national conference.
kaupapa	topic, purpose, plan, agenda	The purpose or principle behind something: ‘the kaupapa of the project’.
kōrero	to talk; speech, story, discussion	A conversation or discussion: ‘let’s have a kōrero’.
ka pai	good	Good, well done, that works.
tautoko	to support; support, backing	Agreement or support: ‘I tautoko that’.
mahi tahi	to work together; collaboration	Teamwork, working together.
kaimahi	worker, employee, staff	Staff, as in ‘all kaimahi’ in an email to everyone.
karakia	prayer, ritual chant, blessing	A short chant or blessing that may open or close a hui, or bless food.
wharepaku	toilet	The toilets, often on signs.

Hui is a good example of how far some of these words have travelled. A study of thirteen Māori words in four New Zealand newspapers from 1997 to 2004 found most of them mainly in articles about Māori issues, but hui and hīkoi ‘march, walk’ in ordinary news as well.

Places, nature and the land

Many of the first Māori words in English, borrowed about two hundred years ago, were names for plants and animals that English had no names for. They are now simply the New Zealand English words for those things.

Word	Meaning	How it is used in NZ English
Aotearoa	New Zealand (originally the North Island)	The Māori name for New Zealand, often paired with it: ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’.
whenua	land, country, ground; placenta	Land, especially land with ancestral ties.
maunga	mountain	A mountain, often one a people identify with.
awa	river, stream	A river.
moana	sea, ocean, large lake	The sea.
rāhui	temporary prohibition, closed season	A temporary ban on an area or resource, such as a beach or fishing ground.
kiwi	the kiwi bird	The bird, and, in English, a New Zealander.
tūī, kererū	parson bird; native pigeon	Native birds, called by their Māori names.
pōhutukawa, kōwhai	coastal tree with red flowers; tree with yellow flowers	Native trees; the pōhutukawa is known as the New Zealand Christmas tree.

Culture and ceremony

Word	Meaning	How it is used in NZ English
marae	courtyard in front of the meeting house; the whole complex	The meeting place of a community, where hui, celebrations and funerals are held.
wharenui	meeting house	The main building of a marae, where guests sleep.
pōwhiri	welcome ceremony	The ritual of welcome onto a marae or a similar venue. Also spelt pōhiri.
manuhiri	visitors, guests	The guests at a pōwhiri, as opposed to the hosts.
hongi	pressing noses in greeting	The traditional greeting, nose to nose.
haka	posture dance	A general term for several kinds of vigorous dance with actions and shouted words, not only the war dance.
kapa haka	Māori performing group	Performing arts groups and the performance itself.
waiata	song; to sing	A song.
tangi	to weep, mourn; mourning	Short for tangihanga, a Māori funeral.
koha	gift, contribution	A gift or contribution, often money, given by guests to their hosts.
aroha	love, compassion, empathy	Love and care, used in English much as in Māori.
whakapapa	genealogy, lineage	Ancestry and descent, which places a person in relation to others.
tikanga	correct procedure, custom, protocol	The right way of doing things, especially Māori custom.

Words to use with care

A few words are easy to pick up and easy to flatten. Each has a precise meaning in te reo Māori that English cannot quite carry. What mana, tapu, utu and the rest mean in te reo itself is in Māori words with no English equivalent, and the word for each member of a whānau is in Māori family words.

Mana ‘prestige, authority’. Not simply influence, and not the magic points of a computer game. Te Aka describes it as a power inherited at birth that can grow or shrink with success or failure, and it belongs to tribes, places and objects as well as people.
Tapu ‘sacred, restricted’. Something set apart and not to be put to ordinary use. Being free of the restrictions of tapu is noa, and restrictions that come from contact with something tapu can be lifted with water, or with food and karakia.
Koha ‘gift, contribution’. Not a tip and not a fee. A koha maintains a relationship and carries a sense of reciprocity: at a hui, the visitors’ koha helps the hosts meet the cost of hosting them.
Tangihanga ‘funeral’. One of the most important institutions in Māori life. The body usually lies on the marae for about three days while visitors come to farewell the person with speeches and song.
Taonga ‘treasure’. Anything prized, not only objects: Te Aka includes resources, ideas and techniques.
Manaakitanga ‘hospitality’, whanaungatanga ‘kinship, connection’ and kaitiakitanga ‘guardianship’. Care for guests, the bonds built by working together, and guardianship of the environment. Each names a value, not a mood, so use them where they are meant.

Plurals: two marae, not two maraes

Māori words in New Zealand English usually take no -s in the plural: one marae, two marae; one whānau, several whānau; the tamariki. This follows te reo itself, where a noun does not change for the plural and the article does instead: te whānau ‘the family’, ngā whānau ‘the families’. A handful of words, such as wahine ‘woman’ and wāhine ‘women’, lengthen a vowel, and a few have separate plural forms, like tamaiti ‘child’ and tamariki ‘children’.

The linguists Andreea Calude and Katie Levendis note that only a handful of Māori loanwords take -s, among them Māoris, kiwis and huis, and that earlier work by Carolyn Davies and Margaret Maclagan found the -s plural had come to be seen as disrespectful to the language, and so dropped. Kiwis, meaning New Zealanders, is the familiar exception.

Pronunciation tips

The spelling of Māori is regular, so once you know a few rules every word on this page can be read correctly. The Māori pronunciation guide covers them properly; these are the ones that matter most here.

Every vowel is sounded, and each has one value: a as in father, but short unless it has a macron. Kai has two vowels, a then i, run together.
The macron is part of the spelling. It makes a vowel long, and leaving it out can make a different word: Māori, whānau, kūmara.
wh is said close to an English f by most speakers today: whānau begins like ‘far’.
ng is the sound in the middle of singer, and it can begin a word: ngā mihi.
r is usually a light tap of the tongue on the ridge behind the teeth, not an English r.

How these words came into English

Borrowing came in two waves. Te Ara describes the missionary printer William Colenso mixing Māori and English in his writing from 1843, and spellings settling slowly: kōwhai was once written co-eye, kowhy and goai. By the 1860s, with settlers outnumbering Māori and the New Zealand Wars separating the two peoples, borrowing almost stopped, and few Māori words entered English until around 1970.

From the 1970s the movement to revitalise te reo Māori, Māori migration to the cities and a new sense of New Zealand as a Pacific nation brought a second wave. It was a different kind of vocabulary: Macalister found that names for plants and animals made up a larger share than words for social and cultural life in 1960s School Journals, and that by the 1990s the order had reversed. Words like aroha, whaea and tangi are the ones being adopted now. Borrowing has gone the other way too: mōrena comes from ‘morning’ and pēpi ‘baby’ from ‘baby’.

Going further

Knowing seventy or eighty Māori words is a start, and many of those words are among the commonest in te reo itself. The most common Māori words show where kai, mahi and whānau sit among the words te reo uses most, and how many Māori words you need sets out what the next few hundred buy you. To go from words to sentences, Verbavia’s te reo Māori course starts from these same words and builds the grammar around them.