Etymology

iwi

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Today it means: An extended group of Maori kin groups or families, sharing common ancestry; a tribe. (An iwi is smaller than a waka and larger than a hapu.) Full definition →

First used 1840sMāori iwi ← Proto-Oceanic *suRi
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The story

  1. Proto-Oceanic · derived from*suRi“bone”
  2. Māori · borrowed fromiwi
  3. English todayiwi

Borrowed from Māori iwi (literally “bone”), ultimately from Proto-Oceanic *suRi (“bone”).

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1840s An extended group of Maori kin groups or families, sharing common ancestry; a tribe. (An iwi is smaller than a waka and larger than a hapu.)

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.