Maasai

M3A1A1S1A1I1
/ˈmɑːsaɪ/

noun

A member of an indigenous people in Kenya and Tanzania.

UncommonScrabble 8

Meanings

nounMaasai (plural Maasai)

alternative Masai · alternative Massai

  1. A member of an indigenous people in Kenya and Tanzania.

    According to anthropology professor Peter Rigby, the Maasai's resistance to Westernization and their reluctance to enter the market system is ethnosuicide.

    2005, Randall Elam Mayes, The Cybernetics of Kenyan Running: Hurry, Hurry Has No Blessing, page 92
    1 more example

    Another way tourists move beyond the pretour narrative during the tour stems from the sheer materiality of being there, engaging in the practice of the tour, enacting the itinerary, and moving through the site, be it a Maasai compound, a Balinese dance performance, a five-hundred-year-old castle in Ghana, or an 1830s Abraham Lincoln heritage site. To perform the site is to inscribe the pretour narrative within the body of the tourist.

    2005, Edward M. Bruner, Culture on Tour: Ethnographies of Travel, page 24
proper noun

alternative Masai · alternative Massai

  1. An Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people.

Translations

Finnish maasait, maasai
  • maasaitgroup of people
  • maasailanguage
German Massai
  • Massaigroup of people
Hungarian maszai, maszáj
  • maszaigroup of people
  • maszájgroup of people
  • maszailanguage
Portuguese massai, massai
  • massaigroup of people
  • massailanguage
Russian масаи, масайский
  • масаи (masai)group of people
  • масайский (masajskij)language
Swahili Wamasai, Kimasai
  • Wamasaigroup of people
  • Kimasailanguage
Swedish maa, massaj
  • maalanguage
  • massajlanguage

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

Maasai. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Maasai

MLA

“Maasai.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Maasai. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Maasai,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Maasai.

Source: Maasai on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.