tūtaki

Maori

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *tuqu-taki (“to join together” – compare with Hawaiian kūkaʻi “rope fastening fish nets together”, Tongan tuʻutaki “to join or tie together”, Samoan tutaʻi “to join or knot together [of ropes]”), reanalyzable as tū + taki. Sense “to shut an enclosure, to block, to lock” is influenced by a homograph of taki “to stick or plant in the ground, to stake” and its reduplicate form takitaki “fence, palisade”.

Verb

tūtaki

1. to join together
2. to meet
3. to shut (of a enclosure), to block, to bolt

   Synonyms: whakarawa, rawe

Noun

tūtaki

1. bolt or bar between two sides of a double door, latch

   Synonyms: whakarawa, koropā

Further reading

• Williams, Herbert William (1917) “tūtaki”, in A Dictionary of the Maori Language, pages 541-2
• “tūtaki” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.