FromProto-Nuclear Polynesian*fifi (“entangled, confused” – compare withTahitianfifi “chain”) related toProto-Oceanic*pisi (“bind up, tie up, wind round, wrap” – compare withTonganfihi “tangled, intricate, complicated”,Samoanfisi “to entwine” andFijianvici “to bind, to coil”)[1][2]
whiwhi
- towind round, tofasten
- Synonym:rawe
- towrap around
- Synonym:rawe
- toencircle
whiwhi
- entangled,knotted
- complex,complicated
- Synonyms:matatini,manganga
whiwhi
- fat coveringentrails
- ^See “fifi.2a”, “fisi” in POLLEX-Online: The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online. Ross Clark and Simon J. Greenhill, editors (2011).
- ^Ross, Malcolm D., Pawley, Andrew, Osmond, Meredith (1998)The lexicon of Proto-Oceanic, volume 1: Material Culture, Canberra: Australian National University,→ISBN, pages292-3
Likely fromwhai “to possess, to pursue, to lay hold of” via conflation with reduplicated fromwhaiwhai.
whiwhi
- toacquire, topossess
- Synonym:whai
- Williams, Herbert William (1917) “whiwhi”, inA Dictionary of the Maori Language, page586
- “whiwhi” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011,→ISBN.
