Papua
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A person indigenous to Papua. dated
"The Papuas are so termed in the Malay language, from their extreme darkness, approaching to black."
- 2 the southeastern part of Papua New Guinea wordnet
- 1 The southern part of what is now called Papua New Guinea, formerly administered as a separate territory to New Guinea.
- 2 The western part of New Guinea, currently part of Indonesia.
- 3 A province of Indonesia.
"Muksin specifically mentioned 11 extinct indigenous languages, such as Tandia and Mawes in West Papua and Papua, along with Kajeli, Piru, Moksela, Palumata, Ternateno, Hukumina, Hoti, Serua, and Nila in different areas of Maluku."
Example
More examples"In the Carteret Islands, near Papua New Guinea, some people have already had to leave their homes because the seawater is washing around their houses."
Etymology
There are three theories: * From Malay pepuah (“curly (of hair)”) for the natives of the island of New Guinea. * From Ternate/Tidore papo ua (“not united; not coalesced”), referring to the territory that geographically was far away from the Sultanate of Tidore (and thus not united). The territory was called papo ua gam sio (“nine village/region that is not united”). * From Biak sup i babwa (“the land below [the sunset]”), referring to the islands (Raja Ampat) west of the Bird's Head, as far as Halmahera.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.