English Explanatory Dictionary

Land of the Long White Cloud

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. New Zealand.

Word forms

Land of the Long White Cloud the Land of the Long White Cloud

Etymology

Loose calque of Māori Aotearoa, from ao (“cloud, daytime, world”), tea (“white”), and roa (“long, tall”). Allegedly the first English-language mention was in the February, 1916, New Zealand School Journal (King, 2004). Probably a reference to the appearance of mountainous land when seen on the horizon from a canoe after an ocean voyage.

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