POLYNESIAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Polynesian mean? 

• POLYNESIAN (noun)
  The noun POLYNESIAN has 2 senses:

1. a native or inhabitant of Polynesia

2. the branch of the Austronesian languages spoken from Madagascar to the central Pacific

  Familiarity information: POLYNESIAN used as a noun is rare.

• POLYNESIAN (adjective)
  The adjective POLYNESIAN has 1 sense:

1. of or relating to Polynesia or its people or culture

  Familiarity information: POLYNESIAN used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POLYNESIAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A native or inhabitant of Polynesia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("Polynesian" is a kind of...):

Austronesian (a native or inhabitant of Austronesia)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Polynesian"):

Fijian (a native or inhabitant of Fiji)

Samoan (a native or inhabitant of the Samoan Islands)

Tahitian (a native or inhabitant of Tahiti)

Tongan (a Polynesian native or inhabitant of Tonga)

Holonyms ("Polynesian" is a member of...):

Polynesia (the islands in the eastern part of Oceania)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The branch of the Austronesian languages spoken from Madagascar to the central Pacific

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

Malayo-Polynesian; Polynesian

Hypernyms ("Polynesian" is a kind of...):

Austronesian; Austronesian language (the family of languages spoken in Australia and Formosa and Malaysia and Polynesia)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Polynesian"):

Eastern Malayo-Polynesian; Oceanic (an eastern subfamily of Malayo-Polynesian languages)

Tongan (the Polynesian language spoken by the Tongan people)

Western Malayo-Polynesian (a western subfamily of Malayo-Polynesian languages)

• POLYNESIAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to Polynesia or its people or culture

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

Polynesia (the islands in the eastern part of Oceania)

 Context examples 

The energetic particles released by the test likely followed Earth’s magnetic field lines to the Polynesian island nation, inducing the aurora.

(Space Weather Events Linked to Human Activity, NASA)

Morinda citrifolia is native to Southeast Asia but has been extensively spread by man throughout India and into the Pacific islands as far as the French Polynesian Islands.

(Morinda citrifolia, NCI Thesaurus)

Over the Yangtze basin in China, north India and Polynesian islands south of the equator, rainfall is decreasing.

(Global disasters linked to warming Indo-Pacific seas, SciDev.Net)