kumara

Borrowed from Maori kūmara.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkuːməɹə/
  • IPA^(key): (New Zealand) [ˈkʰʉːm(ə)ɹʷɐ], (prescribed) [ˈkʰʉːmɐɾɐ]

kumara (plural kumaras or kumara)

1. (New Zealand) The sweet potato. [from 18th c.]
   • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 98:

     They introduced the gourd, taro and kumara from the Polynesian Islands to the New Zealanders.

   • 1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 368:

     “And once, a woman threw a piece of cooked kumara at me and I ducked, and laughed…”

   • 2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 21:

     In contrast to everything else that these migrant people had lugged from island to island, the kūmara had not come from the west.

• suck the kumara

• karamu

kumara

1. allative singular of kuma

From Proto-Finnic *kumara.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkumɑrɑ/, [ˈkumɑ̝rɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -umɑrɑ
• Syllabification^(key): ku‧ma‧ra
• Hyphenation^(key): ku‧ma‧ra

kumara (comparative kumarampi, superlative kumarin)

1. hunch (bent, bowed posture)

   olla kumarassa ― to hunch

• “kumara”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

Ultimately from Latin cucumis, cucumeris. Compare Serbo-Croatian kukumar.

kumara f

1. Any member of the Cucumis genus of plants, including cucumber.

• “kumara”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU (in Slovene), 2014–2025