parauri

Maori

Etymology

para (“yellow, dirt, silt”) +‎ uri (“dark, deep [of colour]”) thus ‘dark yellow’ – compare with paraumu “topsoil” (lit. ‘soil of the umu’) and parā “to turn yellow of dirt, to ripe”. Similar connections of yellow and brown can be found within other languages of the same Austronesian family: Malay for example has kuning tanah (lit. “dirt yellow”) referring to hex colour #eeb261 which can be perceived as brownish to Westerners.

Adjective

parauri

1. dark (of skin colour)

Noun

parauri

1. brown

See also

Colors in Maori · ngā tae (layout · text)

tea, mā	kiwikiwi	pango
mea, kura, whero	karaka; parauri	kōwhai, renga
	kāriki, kākāriki	kārikiuri
	kikorangi	kahurangi
tūāuri	waiporoporo	māwhero

Further reading

• Williams, Herbert William (1917) “parauri”, in A Dictionary of the Maori Language, page 308
• “parauri” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.