Māori words with no English equivalent

Some of the most important words in te reo Māori have no single English equivalent: mana ‘prestige, authority, spiritual power’, tapu ‘sacred, restricted’ and its partner noa ‘free of restriction’, utu ‘reciprocity, balance’, aroha ‘love, compassion’, whanaungatanga ‘kinship, connection’, kaitiakitanga ‘guardianship’. English has a word for part of each, and the part it leaves out is usually the part that matters. This guide takes fourteen of them, gives each one’s dictionary definition, and says, from published Māori and New Zealand sources, what the nearest English word misses.

Updated 7 October 2026 · 12 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 have no English equivalent?

The clearest cases are the words for the values Māori society is organised around: mana, tapu and noa, utu, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, kaitiakitanga, whakapapa and tūrangawaewae. Each is usually given a one-word English translation, and each translation is incomplete in a predictable way. Mana is not just power, utu is not just revenge, and whakapapa is not just a family tree.

Many of these words are also used in New Zealand English, and Māori words in New Zealand English covers how they are used there. This guide goes the other way: what the words mean in te reo itself. It is the Māori companion to untranslatable words, ranked by how often they’re said, and like that post it gives each word a dictionary source rather than a guess. The definitions are Te Aka Māori Dictionary’s; the explanations are quoted or summarised from Te Ara, the encyclopedia of New Zealand, and the other sources listed at the end.

The words at a glance

Word	Te Aka Māori Dictionary gives	What one English word misses
mana	prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power, charisma	Mana comes from the atua and is held, inherited and given, not simply possessed.
tapu	sacred, prohibited, restricted, set apart, forbidden, under atua protection	‘Sacred’ misses the restriction; ‘forbidden’ misses the reason.
noa	free from the extensions of tapu, ordinary, unrestricted	It only makes sense as the other half of tapu.
utu	revenge, payback, cost, price, payment, reciprocity	Revenge is one way of restoring balance; a gift returned is another.
aroha	affection, sympathy, charity, compassion, love, empathy	Love that includes pity, care and an apology.
manaakitanga	hospitality, kindness, generosity, support	Hospitality on which the host’s mana depends.
whanaungatanga	relationship, kinship, sense of family connection	Belonging built by kinship and by working together.
kaitiakitanga	guardianship, stewardship, trusteeship	Guardianship by people who are kin to what they guard.
whakapapa	genealogy, lineage, descent	It links people to land, nature and the universe, not only to ancestors.
tūrangawaewae	place where one has the right to stand	A home you belong to by descent, with duties attached.
mauri	life principle, life force, vital essence	Rivers, forests and objects have it too.
wairua	spirit, soul; feel, mood, atmosphere	The spirit of a person and the feel of a place, in one word.
whakamā	ashamed, shy, bashful, embarrassed; shame	Shame, shyness and withdrawal at once.
ako	to learn, study, instruct, teach	One verb for both sides of learning.

Mana: more than power or prestige

Te Aka gives mana as ‘prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power, charisma’, eight English words for one Māori one, and then explains why none of them is enough. Mana is ‘a supernatural force in a person, place or object’. It comes from the atua and is inherited at birth, ‘the more senior the descent, the greater the mana’, and a person is its agent: ‘man remains the agent, never the source of mana’.

That is the part English ‘power’ leaves out. Power is something you have; mana is something you hold, and it moves. Te Aka says a person’s or tribe’s mana can grow with successful ventures and shrink with failure, that a tribe gives mana to its chief, and that the chief’s mana spreads in turn to the people and their land, water and resources. Te Ara’s Basil Keane calls it ‘an extraordinary power, essence or presence’, highest among rangatira and tohunga. It belongs to groups as much as to people, which is why the course’s example is about a whole tribe: te mana o te iwi ‘the standing of the tribe’.

Tapu and noa: a pair, not two words

Tapu is usually translated as ‘sacred’ or ‘forbidden’, and each translation keeps one half. Te Aka describes something tapu as ‘dedicated to an atua and is thus removed from the sphere of the profane and put into the sphere of the sacred. It is untouchable, no longer to be put to common use.’ The restriction is the visible part; the sacredness is the reason for it. Te Aka also notes that tapu ‘was used as a way to control how people behaved towards each other and the environment’, and that every person is tapu and responsible for respecting the tapu of others and of places.

Noa is the other half. Te Aka defines it as ‘to be free from the extensions of tapu, ordinary, unrestricted’, and the process of lifting tapu is whakanoa. The two words only make sense together: noa is not ‘profane’ or ‘unclean’ but simply ordinary, safe for everyday use. Te Aka distinguishes intrinsic tapu, which belongs to a thing itself, from the extensions of tapu picked up by contact with it, and says the extensions ‘can be removed with water, or food and karakia’. That is why, in Te Aka’s own example, a person leaving a cemetery sprinkles water on their hands and head: so that they are noa.

Food matters here because, as Te Ara’s account of Māori feasts puts it, ‘food is noa’, and in certain rituals food is used to remove tapu. The course shows the pair at work in a reading about a first pōwhiri: after the speeches the visitors go to the dining hall, and I te kai, kua mutu te tapu, ā, i kōrero noa te katoa. ‘At the meal, the tapu was over, and everyone talked freely.’ Two more from the course: He wāhi tapu tēnei. ‘This is a sacred place.’ and Kua noa te wāhi. ‘The place is free of restriction now.’

Noa is also a common small word in te reo, the particle meaning ‘only, just, freely’, as in He iti noa iho. ‘It’s only small.’ Te Aka describes it as denoting ‘an absence of limitations or conditions’, which is the same idea as freedom from tapu.

Utu: reciprocity, not revenge

Utu is the word most often flattened in English, where it is usually glossed as revenge. Te Aka’s definition starts there, ‘revenge, vengeance, retaliation, payback’, and goes on, ‘cost, price, wage, fee, payment, salary, reciprocity’. Then it says what holds those together: utu is ‘an important concept concerned with the maintenance of balance and harmony in relationships between individuals and groups and order within Māori society, whether through gift exchange or as a result of hostilities between groups. It is closely linked to mana and includes reciprocation of kind deeds as well as revenge.’

Te Ara puts it in one sentence: ‘A common translation of utu is revenge; however, culturally it refers to returning balance.’ Gifts worked by the same principle. Manuka Henare, writing in Te Ara, describes how gifts ‘were governed by the principle of utu (reciprocity)’, with the expectation that a gift of greater value would follow; Te Aka adds that gift exchange ‘created reciprocal obligations … and established permanent and personal relationships’.

Everyday te reo keeps the ordinary sense in plain view: utu is the price. He aha te utu? ‘What is the price?’ is one of the first questions in the course’s shopping lessons. A price is a balance restored, which is the whole idea in small.

Aroha: love that includes compassion

Aroha is love, and Te Aka’s noun sense lists ‘affection, sympathy, charity, compassion, love, empathy’; as a verb it is ‘to love, feel pity, feel concern for, feel compassion, empathise’. English separates love from pity, and te reo does not. One of Te Aka’s examples spells out what aroha covers: ‘There are many expressions of love, including caring, giving hospitality to visitors, helping, being considerate, forgiving sins, putting up with someone’s errors, and being blind to the faults of others.’

You can hear the range in three everyday phrases from the course: He aroha tōku ki a ia. ‘I feel for him.’, Arohanui. ‘Much love.’ at the end of a letter, and Aroha mai. ‘Sorry.’, literally aroha towards me.

Manaakitanga: hospitality that builds mana

Manaakitanga is translated as hospitality, and Te Aka defines it as ‘hospitality, kindness, generosity, support — the process of showing respect, generosity and care for others’. What ‘hospitality’ leaves out is the link to mana. Te Aka’s entry for the verb manaaki ‘to care for, give hospitality to’ quotes a line from 1915: Mā te manaaki i te tangata e tū ai te mana, e wehi ai te tangata ki a koe. ‘By providing hospitality to people is mana acquired whereby people respect you.’

Te Ara’s account of hākari, the feasts held for visiting tribes, says that ‘the mana of the hosts would depend on their ability to be lavish with food’, and tells stories of hosts and guests competing to outdo each other. Thanking a host in te reo names the value directly: Kia ora rawa atu mō tō manaakitanga. ‘Thank you so much for your hospitality.’

Whanaungatanga: belonging, not just kinship

Whanaungatanga comes from whanaunga ‘relative’, and ‘kinship’ is the usual translation. Te Aka’s definition is wider: ‘a relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging’. It grows out of kinship rights and obligations, and ‘it also extends to others to whom one develops a close familial, friendship or reciprocal relationship’. So a team, a class or a group of friends can have whanaungatanga with no blood tie at all.

It also decides things. Mark Derby, writing in Te Ara, notes that ‘even on less formal occasions whanaungatanga (kin relationships) may decide a particular course of action’. The process of building it has its own word, whakawhanaungatanga, which Te Aka gives as ‘process of establishing relationships, relating well to others’: the round of introductions at the start of many meetings. Māori family words sets out the kinship terms it rests on.

Kaitiakitanga: guardianship by kin

Kaitiakitanga is defined by Te Aka as ‘guardianship, stewardship, trusteeship’, and in English it is often used to mean environmental care. Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, in Te Ara, gives the reason the English words fall short. Kaitiakitanga is ‘a way of managing the environment, based on the traditional Māori world view’, in which ‘there is a deep kinship between humans and the natural world … People are not superior to the natural order; they are part of it.’ A steward looks after something on another’s behalf; a kaitiaki ‘guardian’ looks after relatives.

It is also not only about nature. Royal notes that kaitiakitanga applies to family heirlooms such as cloaks and books of whakapapa, each cared for by one kaitiaki on behalf of all the descendants. And it rests on the words above: ‘Mana, tapu and mauri are concepts that underpin the traditional Māori world view and kaitiakitanga.’

Whakapapa and tūrangawaewae: descent and belonging

Whakapapa is ‘genealogy, genealogical table, lineage, descent’, and also a verb, ‘to place in layers, lay one upon another’. Te Ara quotes Apirana Ngata: whakapapa is ‘the process of laying one thing upon another. If you visualise the foundation ancestors as the first generation, the next and succeeding ancestors are placed on them in ordered layers.’ What ‘genealogy’ misses is the reach. Rāwiri Taonui calls whakapapa ‘a taxonomic framework that links all animate and inanimate, known and unknown phenomena in the terrestrial and spiritual worlds. Whakapapa therefore binds all things.’ A family tree stops at people; whakapapa does not.

Tūrangawaewae is built from tūranga ‘standing place’ and waewae ‘feet’: a place to stand. Te Aka defines it as a ‘place where one has rights of residence and belonging through kinship and whakapapa’. Te Ara says a hapū’s marae and the lands associated with them are the tūrangawaewae of its members, and that rights there come with responsibilities, including the duty, called ahi kā ‘a lighted fire’, to return and keep the marae fires alight. ‘Home’ has the feeling; it lacks the rights, the duties and the descent. The course has it as tōku tūrangawaewae ‘my place to stand’. The mountain, river and marae it points to are the ones a pepeha names when someone introduces themselves.

Mauri and wairua: life force and spirit

English tends to fold both of these into ‘spirit’. Te reo Māori keeps them apart. Mauri is ‘life principle, life force, vital essence’, and Te Aka adds that the word is ‘also used for a physical object, individual, ecosystem or social group in which this essence is located’. Te Ara’s Basil Keane writes that ‘all people and things have mauri’, and Royal describes karakia carried out over a mauri stone to protect the life force of a forest. So a river has one: te mauri o te awa ‘the life force of the river’. The greeting and sign-off Mauri ora! ‘Be well!’ wishes it on a person.

Wairua is the spirit of a person, which, in Te Aka’s words, ‘exists beyond death’ and is ‘distinct from the body and the mauri’. It has a second, everyday sense that English spreads over several words: ‘attitude, quintessence, feel, mood, feeling, nature, essence, atmosphere’. He pai te wairua o tēnei wāhi. ‘This place has a good feel about it.’

Whakamā and ako: two everyday ones

Not every word on this page is about ceremony. Whakamā is the feeling of being ashamed, shy or embarrassed, and it contains mā ‘white, pale’. Joan Metge’s book-length study of it is described by its publisher as being about ‘a Maori word without an English counterpart — though “shyness”, “shame” and “withdrawal” all convey part of the meaning’. Someone who has gone quiet in a group may be whakamā, not rude: Kei te whakamā ia. ‘He’s embarrassed.’

Ako means both to learn and to teach: Te Aka gives ‘to learn, study, instruct, teach, advise’. New Zealand’s Ministry of Education uses it as a principle of its Māori education strategy, ‘grounded in the principle of reciprocity where both the teacher and learner give and receive’. In the course it is the verb for studying: Kei te ako au i te reo Māori. ‘I’m learning te reo Māori.’

Why ‘no English equivalent’ is not quite right

Every word here can be translated, and Te Aka translates each one, often with a long paragraph. What English lacks is one word that carries the whole idea. The reason is that these words belong to a system: mana ‘goes hand in hand with tapu’, in Te Aka’s phrase, utu is ‘closely linked to mana’, manaakitanga builds it, and kaitiakitanga rests on mana, tapu and mauri. An English word can match one of them and still lose the links, which is where most of the meaning is.

That is also why they are worth learning in te reo rather than in English. Several are common words, not rare ones: aroha and mana are both in the first two hundred of the most common Māori words, and how many Māori words you need explains what a vocabulary of that size lets you do. The whakataukī in Māori proverbs are another place to meet this vocabulary at work.

Words deliberately left out

Words that translate well were left out, even though they are often on lists like this one: hui is a meeting, kai is food, mahi is work. Whānau, koha and taonga each mean more than ‘family’, ‘gift’ and ‘treasure’, and are explained in the New Zealand English guide linked above. Verbavia’s te reo Māori course teaches mana, tapu, noa, utu and most of the others in two lessons of their own, after the grammar that lets you use them in sentences.