Etymograph

English

tohunga

Tohunga comes from Māori tohunga ‘skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer’.

  1. Māorimoderntohunga1‘skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 2003tohunga1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English tohunga
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand: “Those who became tohunga did so not simply voluntarily,…”.

Lineage

  1. MāorimoderntohungaWiktionary, English tohunga‘skilled person, chosen expert, priest, healer’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 2003tohungaWiktionary, English tohunga. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand: “Those who became tohunga did so not simply voluntarily,…”

Every English word from Māori tohunga

Today it means

noun A Māori chosen to be a specialist in a specific skilled field; especially, a priest.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “tohunga”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Māori tohunga / tohunga

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