pokai

Malay

Etymology

From Cantonese 仆街 (puk1 gaai1, “fall onto street, drop dead, go to hell”).

Pronunciation

  • Hyphenation: po‧kai

Adjective

pokai (Jawi spelling ڤوکاي)

  1. (slang) Having no money; broke

Further reading

Maori

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *pookai (compare with Tahitian pōʻai)[1] (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

pokai

  1. to wind something in a ball or coil
  2. to roll up, to wrap up
  3. to surround
    Synonyms: whiwhi, rawe

Noun

pokai

  1. ball (of string etc)
  2. roll
  3. wrap, wrapper

References

  1. ^ Ross Clark and Simon J. Greenhill, editors (2011), “pookai”, in “POLLEX-Online: The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online”, in Oceanic Linguistics, volume 50, number 2, pages 551-559

Further reading

  • Williams, Herbert William (1917) “pokai”, in A Dictionary of the Maori Language, pages 335-6
  • “pokai” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.
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