"tohunga" meaning in English

See tohunga in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: tohungas [plural]
Etymology: From Māori tohunga (“skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer”). Etymology templates: {{bor|en|mi|tohunga||skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer}} Māori tohunga (“skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} tohunga (plural tohungas)
  1. (New Zealand) A Māori chosen to be a specialist in a specific skilled field; especially, a priest. Tags: New-Zealand Derived forms: tohungaism
    Sense id: en-tohunga-en-noun-Q3-N3CFY Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, New Zealand English, Pages with 2 entries, Pages with entries, Pages with 2 entries, Pages with entries Disambiguation of Pages with 2 entries: 88 10 2 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 89 9 2

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mi",
        "3": "tohunga",
        "4": "",
        "5": "skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer"
      },
      "expansion": "Māori tohunga (“skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer”)",
      "name": "bor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Māori tohunga (“skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tohungas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tohunga (plural tohungas)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "New Zealand English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 2 entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "88 10 2",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 2 entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "89 9 2",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "tohungaism"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              17,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 68:",
          "text": "Those who became tohunga did so not simply voluntarily, but because they displayed aptitudes at an early age which indicated to their elders that they had been chosen by deities to perform particular functions […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A Māori chosen to be a specialist in a specific skilled field; especially, a priest."
      ],
      "id": "en-tohunga-en-noun-Q3-N3CFY",
      "links": [
        [
          "Māori",
          "Māori"
        ],
        [
          "priest",
          "priest"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(New Zealand) A Māori chosen to be a specialist in a specific skilled field; especially, a priest."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "New-Zealand"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tohunga"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "Pages with 2 entries",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "tohungaism"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "mi",
        "3": "tohunga",
        "4": "",
        "5": "skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer"
      },
      "expansion": "Māori tohunga (“skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer”)",
      "name": "bor"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Māori tohunga (“skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tohungas",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tohunga (plural tohungas)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms borrowed from Māori",
        "English terms derived from Māori",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "New Zealand English",
        "Pages with 2 entries",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              17,
              24
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 68:",
          "text": "Those who became tohunga did so not simply voluntarily, but because they displayed aptitudes at an early age which indicated to their elders that they had been chosen by deities to perform particular functions […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A Māori chosen to be a specialist in a specific skilled field; especially, a priest."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Māori",
          "Māori"
        ],
        [
          "priest",
          "priest"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(New Zealand) A Māori chosen to be a specialist in a specific skilled field; especially, a priest."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "New-Zealand"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tohunga"
}

Download raw JSONL data for tohunga meaning in English (1.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). 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.