Cook Islands Maorin.adj.
/ˌkʊk ˌʌɪlən(d)z ˈmaʊri/, U.S. /ˌkʊk ˌaɪlən(d)z ˈmaʊri/, New Zealand English /ˌkʊk ˌɑelən(d)z ˈmʌːori/, /ˌkʊk ˌɑelən(d)z ˈmæuri/ A. n.
1. A member of the Polynesian original people of the Cook Islands; a descendant of this people.
ΚΠ
1914 Evening Post (Wellington, N.Z.) 9 Oct. 4/2 Great care will have to be exercised in the administration of these extensive powers amongst..the Cook Islands Maoris.
2012 J. Minahan Ethnic Groups of S. Asia & Pacific 170/2 The majority of the Cook Islands Maoris belong to various Protestant sects.
2. The Polynesian language of the original people of the Cook Islands.
ΚΠ
1963 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. 72 61 It is more than thirty years since the idea of publishing a dictionary of Cook Islands Maori first took shape in the mind of the compiler, Stephen Savage.
2019 @KitaandMat 3 May in twitter.com (accessed 19 July 2019) There is something about those words that you learn in other languages that stay with you as part of your memories of being in that place. In Cook Islands Maori, it's kia orana (hello) and meitaka (thankyou).
B. adj.
Of, belonging to, or relating to the Cook Islands Maori or their language.
ΚΠ
1918 Advent Rev. & Sabbath Herald (Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C.) 24 Oct. 5/1 In the Rarotongan (Cook Islands Maori) Bible this expression is rendered, ‘e kua mareka rava’, a translation of which into English would read, ‘and was greatly delighted’.
2002 P. S. Herda in A. Herle et al. Pacific Art ii. ix. 144/1 For the Cook Islands Maori population in New Zealand, tivaevae, more than any other item of material culture, denotes a historically contextualised, ethnically explicit cultural identity.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2020; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.adj.1914