papua means the southern part of what is now called Papua New Guinea, formerly administered as a separate territory to New Guinea.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, papua ranks #23,631 of 42,752 for Qualifying.
papua is pronounced /ˈpaːpwə/.
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.
name
- The southern part of what is now called Papua New Guinea, formerly administered as a separate territory to New Guinea.
- The western part of New Guinea, currently part of Indonesia.
- A province of Indonesia.
noun
- A person indigenous to Papua.e.g.“The Papuas are so termed in the Malay language, from their extreme darkness, approaching to black.” — 1841, The Colonial Magazine and Commercial-Maritime Journal, page 447:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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