"kahuna" meaning in English

See kahuna in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /kəˈhuːnə/ [UK] Forms: kahunas [plural], kahuna [plural]
Rhymes: -uːnə Etymology: Borrowed from Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”). Etymology templates: {{bor|en|haw|kahuna||shaman, wizard}} Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”) Head templates: {{en-noun|s|kahuna}} kahuna (plural kahunas or kahuna)
  1. (Hawaii) A priest or priestess of the traditional Hawaiian religion. Tags: Hawaii Categories (topical): People
    Sense id: en-kahuna-en-noun-mVtAoY9W Disambiguation of People: 47 53 Categories (other): Hawaiian English
  2. (surfing) A great surfer. Categories (topical): Surfing, People
    Sense id: en-kahuna-en-noun-ciYstfrw Disambiguation of People: 47 53 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 27 73 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 18 82 Topics: hobbies, lifestyle, sports, surfing
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: big kahuna

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for kahuna meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "big kahuna"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "haw",
        "3": "kahuna",
        "4": "",
        "5": "shaman, wizard"
      },
      "expansion": "Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”)",
      "name": "bor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Borrowed from Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "kahunas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kahuna",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "s",
        "2": "kahuna"
      },
      "expansion": "kahuna (plural kahunas or kahuna)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Hawaiian English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Julia Flynn Siler, Lost Kingdom, Grove Press, page 230",
          "text": "They were kāhuna, practitioners of the old Hawaiian religion, apparently offering themselves as sacrifices to appease the gods so that the queen would be restored.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A priest or priestess of the traditional Hawaiian religion."
      ],
      "id": "en-kahuna-en-noun-mVtAoY9W",
      "links": [
        [
          "priest",
          "priest"
        ],
        [
          "priestess",
          "priestess"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Hawaii) A priest or priestess of the traditional Hawaiian religion."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Hawaii"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Surfing",
          "orig": "en:Surfing",
          "parents": [
            "Water sports",
            "Sports",
            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "27 73",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "18 82",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "47 53",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A great surfer."
      ],
      "id": "en-kahuna-en-noun-ciYstfrw",
      "links": [
        [
          "surfing",
          "surfing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "surfer",
          "surfer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(surfing) A great surfer."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports",
        "surfing"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/kəˈhuːnə/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-uːnə"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "kahuna"
  ],
  "word": "kahuna"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English 3-syllable words",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English indeclinable nouns",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English nouns with irregular plurals",
    "English terms borrowed from Hawaiian",
    "English terms derived from Hawaiian",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "Rhymes:English/uːnə",
    "Rhymes:English/uːnə/3 syllables",
    "en:People"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "big kahuna"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "haw",
        "3": "kahuna",
        "4": "",
        "5": "shaman, wizard"
      },
      "expansion": "Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”)",
      "name": "bor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Borrowed from Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "kahunas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "kahuna",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "s",
        "2": "kahuna"
      },
      "expansion": "kahuna (plural kahunas or kahuna)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Hawaiian English",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Julia Flynn Siler, Lost Kingdom, Grove Press, page 230",
          "text": "They were kāhuna, practitioners of the old Hawaiian religion, apparently offering themselves as sacrifices to appease the gods so that the queen would be restored.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A priest or priestess of the traditional Hawaiian religion."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "priest",
          "priest"
        ],
        [
          "priestess",
          "priestess"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Hawaii) A priest or priestess of the traditional Hawaiian religion."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Hawaii"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Surfing"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A great surfer."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "surfing",
          "surfing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "surfer",
          "surfer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(surfing) A great surfer."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports",
        "surfing"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/kəˈhuːnə/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-uːnə"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "kahuna"
  ],
  "word": "kahuna"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.