What does Pākehā mean? Origin and use

What does Pākehā mean? It is the te reo Māori word for a New Zealander of European descent, and it is the word people mean when they ask for “the Māori word for a white person”. It is not a colour word, though: the Māori for white is mā, and Pākehā ‘New Zealander of European descent’ describes where someone’s people came from, not their skin. Te Aka Māori Dictionary adds that, despite the claims of some non-Māori speakers, the word does not normally have negative connotations. This guide covers its four dictionary meanings, who it does and does not describe, the accounts of where it came from (including the “white pig” story), what research says about whether it offends, and how to say it: Pā-ke-hā, three syllables.

Updated 19 October 2026 · 8 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.

Pākehā meaning: the four senses in Te Aka

Te Aka Māori Dictionary gives the word four senses. The noun everyone meets is its third, put first here; the others explain how it is used inside Māori sentences.

Sense (Te Aka)	Meaning	Te Aka’s example, translated
Noun	New Zealander of European descent; probably first applied to English-speaking Europeans living in Aotearoa New Zealand	“a Pākehā from America, a cowboy, came hurrying up” (an example dated 1900)
Modifier	English, foreign, European, exotic: introduced from or originating in a foreign country	“very proficient in the English language”, which is te reo Pākehā in the Māori
Noun	foreigner, alien	“only exotic trees are deciduous”: the trees of the Pākehā, as opposed to native ones
Verb	to become Pākehā	a descendant who “has become too much of a Pākehā”

So in Māori the word reaches further than a group of people. Te Aka lists mate Pākehā ‘introduced diseases’ for the illnesses that arrived with colonisation, pikopiko Pākehā ‘asparagus’, literally a foreign fern shoot, and taenga mai o te Pākehā ‘the arrival of the Pākehā’ for the coming of Europeans. Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, calls its story on introduced foods Kai Pākehā.

No part of the word means white. Where the anthem’s Māori verse names the two peoples by colour it says kiri whero, kiri mā ‘red skin, white skin’ and then, as a separate pair, Iwi Māori, Pākehā; the anthem in Māori guide goes through it line by line.

Who counts as Pākehā, and who does not

Te Aka’s definition is about descent and country: a New Zealander of European descent. Other published definitions draw the line in different places, and Statistics New Zealand’s 2001 review of how it measures ethnicity collected several of them:

Source	Definition
Te Aka Māori Dictionary	New Zealander of European descent
Oxford Dictionary of New Zealand English (as quoted by Statistics NZ)	a pale-skinned non-Polynesian immigrant or foreigner as distinct from a Māori
Paul Spoonley, sociologist, 1988 (as quoted by Statistics NZ)	New Zealanders of a European background whose values were formed as members of the dominant group; it excludes, for example, Chinese, Indian, Samoan and Tongan New Zealanders, and Europeans who keep a strong tie to a homeland elsewhere
Race Relations Office pamphlet (as quoted by Statistics NZ)	commonly used of fair-skinned New Zealanders, and principally of New Zealanders of British or European ancestry
Some census respondents (Statistics NZ)	for many, simply non-Māori, or non-Māori European

By Te Aka’s main definition, then, a white American or Australian is not a Pākehā, since the word names New Zealanders, although the older sense of “foreigner” and Te Aka’s American cowboy show that the word could reach that far. A New Zealander whose family came from China or Samoa is not Pākehā under Spoonley’s definition, while the looser “non-Māori” use would take them in. Whether a particular person calls themselves Pākehā is, in the end, their own choice: the Race Relations Office pamphlet stressed that New Zealanders choose for themselves how they want to be described.

Pākehā in the census

In the 1996 census the tick box for the largest ethnic group read NZ European / Pākehā. Its own review records objections from every direction: that the respondents were not European, that Pākehā was the right term and “New Zealand European” the wrong one, that Pākehā was wrong, and that everyone should simply be “New Zealander”. For 2001 it went back to the 1991 format, and the box read New Zealand European. The reasons given for the change differ:

Source	Why Pākehā was taken off the 2001 census form
Statistics New Zealand, Review of the Measurement of Ethnicity (2001)	Research showed the 1996 question encouraged people to answer by ancestry rather than identification, so the 1991 format returned; removing Pākehā was one effect of that change.
The Spinoff (Branko Marcetic, 2018)	Many people had crossed the word out or complained, and Statistics NZ removed it to quell the outrage; a staff member protested that the reason was accuracy.

Where the word Pākehā comes from

Nobody knows for certain. The word was in use before 1815, according to the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, and the accounts of its origin are these:

Account	Who gives it
A shortened form of pakepakehā, the Māori rendering of a word or words remembered from the chant foreign sailors used to raise their anchor on a very early visit.	Mohi Tūrei, an acknowledged expert in Ngāti Porou tribal lore, as Te Aka reports him from a source dated 1911.
Pakepakehā was another name for the tūrehu ‘fair-skinned fairy folk’ or patupaiarehe ‘fair-skinned mythical people of the bush’, and Europeans, with their fair skin and light hair, resembled them.	“Others”, in Te Aka; Te Ara’s story on patupaiarehe, which says it “may have given rise to” Pākehā. Te Aka defines pakepakehā and its synonym pākehakeha as mythical beings with fair skins resembling people.
Four possible sources, in this order of likelihood: pakepakeha, imaginary beings resembling men; pakehakeha, one of the sea gods; keha, a flea; and poaka, a pig.	The 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (John Sidney Gully), which adds that the word’s use “was in no sense derogatory”.
The word joins pā ‘to touch, make contact’, a kē linked to rerekē ‘different’, and hā ‘breath’: to come into contact with a different breath.	A teacher writing on the Te Papa museum blog in 2018, who calls it “just one interpretation”, heard from an elder.

Te Ara also records how one Coromandel elder, Te Horetā Te Taniwha, remembered Captain Cook’s visit: his elders decided the crew were goblins, because they rowed with their backs to the shore and so must have eyes in the backs of their heads.

The “white pig” and “flea” stories

The claim that Pākehā means “white pig” or “white flea” is the version most often repeated by people who object to the word. Keha is indeed one of Te Aka’s words for a flea (beside puruhi), and poaka is the word for a pig, and the 1966 encyclopaedia did list both as possible, if less likely, sources. But the word has no part that means white, and a peer-reviewed study of Pākehā identity (Gray, Jaber and Anglem, 2013) describes the belief that it means “white pig” or “white flea” as resting on what Pearson and Sissons called “a great New Zealand myth”. Te Aka’s own note is the plainest: despite the claims of some non-Māori speakers, the term does not normally have negative connotations.

Is Pākehā offensive?

Dictionaries say no, and some New Zealanders still dislike being called it. Both are on the record:

The dictionaries. Te Aka: the term “does not normally have negative connotations”. The 1966 encyclopaedia: its use “was in no sense derogatory”.
The research. A national study of 6,507 people (Sibley, Houkamau and Hoverd, 2011) tested the claim that the word is pejorative and found no support for it. Māori expressed positive attitudes toward New Zealanders of European descent whichever label they preferred; for Māori, using “Pākehā” went with their own cultural engagement, including speaking Māori. New Zealanders of European descent who preferred “Pākehā” were warmer toward Māori than those who preferred “New Zealand European”, “New Zealander” or “Kiwi”.
The objections. Statistics NZ’s review records the complaints about the 1996 census, and criticism of the word in an advertising campaign by the Race Relations Office. The Spinoff’s history of the controversy describes a 1988 attempt to have the word dropped on the grounds that it came from the words for flea or pig, and quotes the National Party leader Don Brash saying in 2004 that he had started using “non-Maori” because he had been told a lot of New Zealanders of European descent found the term offensive.
The people it names. Many use it of themselves. The historian Michael King wrote Being Pākehā (1985) and Being Pākehā Now (1999), arguing, in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography’s summary, that Pākehā are “a second indigenous New Zealand culture”, distinct from their European forebears.

Used as Te Aka defines it, as the ordinary name for a group, it is the standard word in New Zealand writing, Te Ara’s included. Statistics NZ’s summary still holds: there is no term for this group that everyone accepts, and some prefer Pākehā while others prefer New Zealand European.

How to say Pākehā

Three syllables, Pā-ke-hā. The two macrons mark long vowels: both ās are long, roughly the a of car in a New Zealand or British accent, and the e between them is short, as in entry (Victoria University’s comparisons). The h is sounded. The Māori pronunciation guide explains every vowel and what a macron does.

The plural and the capital

Māori words take no plural s in English: one Pākehā, two Pākehā, never “Pākehās”, as NZHistory’s style guide puts it for all Māori words. The word is spelt with a capital and both macrons in Te Aka, and The Spinoff notes that capitalising it is now standard.

Related words: tauiwi, manuhiri, tangata whenua

Word	Meaning (Te Aka)	How it differs from Pākehā
tauiwi	foreigner, European, non-Māori, colonist; outsider; stranger	Wider: anyone from outside, of any origin.
manuhiri	visitor, guest	A role, not an identity: whoever is being welcomed, Māori or not.
tangata whenua	local people, hosts, indigenous people	The people of the land, or the hosts of a particular place.

How manuhiri and tangata whenua meet on a marae is the subject of what happens at a pōwhiri, and Pākehā is one of many Māori words now used inside English, collected in Māori words in New Zealand English. Whether a Pākehā can introduce themselves with a pepeha, and how, is in the pepeha guide.

Going further

Pākehā, tauiwi, manuhiri, tangata whenua and mā all appear in our free te reo Māori course, which teaches its words in sentences, one lesson a day.