Meanings
maria1
- pluralplural of mare (“lunar plain”).
Maria2
- 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 Story3 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 211By 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, 1756CNN 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 - A surname originating as a matronymic.
Maria3
Maria4
- A Papuan language spoken in Papua New Guinea.
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounSynonym of Mary, mother of Jesus, in Latin, Spanish, etc. contexts.
More synonyms by meaning
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Biblical Hebrewמִרְיָם (miryɔm)
- Aramaicמרים
- Koine GreekΜᾰρῐ́ᾱ (Mărĭ́ā)
- LatinMaria
- 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.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with maria
Anagrams
Cite this entry
maria. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/maria
“maria.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/maria. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “maria,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/maria.
Source: maria on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.