† polynesian.

Etymology: < Polynesia, a name for the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean east of Australia and the Malay Archipelago (or, more specifically, for those east of Melanesia and Micronesia) < French Polynésie (De Brosses 1756) < poly- poly- comb. form + ancient Greek νῆσος island (see nesidioblast n.) + French -ie -y suffix³; compare -ia suffix¹.The suggestion that this name was in use two centuries before De Brosses is an error, apparently founded on the circumstance that De Brosses in the Table des Articles of his Histoire, arranges the voyages under his three heads of Magellanie, Australie, and Polynésie, and also uses these designations in the headings which he prefixes to the narratives themselves, the originals of which do not use these terms. These headings are retained by Callander in his Terra Australis, 1766 (an unacknowledged translation of De Brosses). Compare:1756 C. de Brosses Hist. des Navigations aux Terres Australes I. Pref. p. ii La division de la Terre australe y étoit faite [i.e. in a memoir previously read by de Brosses to a private literary society, which formed the germ of his Histoire], rélativement à ces trois mers, en Magellanique, Polynèsie & Australasie.1766 J. Callander Terra Australis Cognita I. 49 We [i.e. De Brosses] call the third division polynesia, being composed of all those islands, which are found dispersed in the vast Pacific Ocean.1842 M. Russell Polynesia i. 22 The name Polynesia was first applied to this interesting portion of the globe by the learned President de Brosses, in his History of Navigation.