maria

M3A1R1I1A1
US/ˈmɑɹ.i.ə/US/ˈmɛɚ.i.ə/usually/məˈɹiːə//məˈɹaɪə/

proper noun

A female given name from Hebrew.

Similar
Marymother of Jesusin LatinSpanishCalophyllum longifoliummare
CommonScrabble 7

Meanings

maria1

noun
  1. pluralplural of mare (“lunar plain”).

Maria2

proper noun
  1. A female given name from Hebrew.

    I've just kissed a girl named Maria / And suddenly I found how wonderful a sound can be! / Maria! Say it loud and there's music playing / Say it soft and it's almost like praying

    1957, “Maria”, in Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Leonard Bernstein (music), West Side Story
    3 more examples

    Yet herein they come short of the monks and friars in their conceits of the word Maria; they have so tossed it and turned it, so anagrammatized and transposed it, that never were five poor letters so worried since time did put them into the alphabet.

    1629, Thomas Adams, Meditations upon Creed, The Works of Thomas Adams, James Nichol (1862), volume 3, page 211

    By their dresses, their names, and the airs of quality they give themselves, I am rendered ridiculous among all my acquaintance. My wife, who is a very plain good woman, and whose name is Amey, has been new-christened, and is called Amelia; and my little daughter, a child of a year old, is no longer Polly, but Maria.

    1776, Adam Fitz-Adam: The World of Adam Fitz-Adam. Edinburgh, Apollo Press 1776: Numb. 187. Thursday, July 29, 1756

    CNN anchor and correspondent Maria Santana was reporting from the scene when she and her team were hit by pepper balls and tear gas that officers fired into the crowd. “At that time, I can tell you, it is very hard to breathe, very hard to talk, your eyes begin to water,” she reported.

    2025 September 19, Alisha Ebrahimji, Emma Tucker, “Chicago-area mayor says federal agents teargassed him at a protest outside an ICE facility”, in CNN
  2. Synonym of Mary, mother of Jesus, in Latin, Spanish, etc. contexts.

    Synonyms: Mary, mother of Jesus, in Latin, Spanish

  3. A surname originating as a matronymic.

Maria3

proper noun
  1. A Dravidian language spoken in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh provinces in India.

Maria4

proper noun

Synonyms & antonyms

proper nounSynonym of Mary, mother of Jesus, in Latin, Spanish, etc. contexts.

Similar
Marymother of Jesusin LatinSpanish

More synonyms by meaning

nounvaluable timber tree of Panama

Similar
Calophyllum longifolium
Broader

nouna dark region of considerable extent on the surface of the moon

Similar
Broader
Also see

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

  1. Biblical Hebrewמִרְיָם (miryɔm)
  2. Aramaicמרים
  3. Koine GreekΜᾰρῐ́ᾱ (Mărĭ́ā)
  4. LatinMaria
  5. EnglishMaria

Borrowed from Latin Maria, borrowed from Koine Greek Μᾰρῐ́ᾱ (Mărĭ́ā), borrowed from Aramaic מרים, borrowed from Biblical Hebrew מִרְיָם (miryɔm). Doublet of Mary, Marie, and Miriam.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with maria

All rhymes →

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

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

MLA

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

Chicago

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

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