noun
Meaning 1
A person of Hawaiian descent.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
kanaka
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
Meaning 2
A South Pacific Islander, especially a labourer in Australia or Canada.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: historical
Examples
- 1933, Cambridge History of the British Empire, Part I, Volume VII, Cambridge University Press, Reissued 1988, Ernest Scott (editor), Australia, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, page 313, So long as the Kanakas remained, white labour in Queensland went into the mills, from which the Kanakas were excluded, rather than into the cane brakes. Slowly, however, the change proceeded. [...] The gentleman planter, owning broad estates worked by Kanaka gangs, crushing and refining his own sugar after a fashion in the plantation mill, was by that time obsolescent. Though the small farmers into whose hands the plantations were divided might employ a Kanaka or two, no Kanaka might own land.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 3
Alternative letter-case form of kanaka.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
1840. From Hawaiian kanaka (“person”), ultimately from Proto-Polynesian *taŋata.
Across languages
Translations
3 source translations are retained for this English entry.
- Georgian: კანაკი (ḳanaḳi) — a person of Hawaiian descent
- Marathi: कानाका (kānākā) — a person of Hawaiian descent
- Russian: кана́к (kanák) — a person of Hawaiian descent