Kiwi meaning

kēwē
kiwis
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Any of several flightless birds of the genus Apteryx native to New Zealand, having vestigial wings and a long slender bill.
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(informal) A New Zealander.
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A kiwifruit.
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Any of an order (Apterygiformes) of tailless New Zealand birds, with undeveloped wings, hairlike feathers, and a long, slender bill: it feeds chiefly on insects and worms.
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The brown, hairy, egg-shaped fruit, with a sweet, edible, green pulp, of a vine (Actinidia chinensis) of a family (Actinidiaceae, order Theales) of dicotyledonous tropical trees, shrubs, and vines.
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(informal) A New Zealander.
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A flightless bird of the genus Apteryx native to New Zealand.
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A person from New Zealand - (preferably Kiwi).
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A New Zealand dollar.
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A kiwi fruit - not used in New Zealand where the full name is used.
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(informal) A New Zealander.
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(informal) Of or from New Zealand.
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Origin of kiwi

  • Maori imitative of the call of male kiwis Sense 3, short for kiwifruit

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Maori kiwi.

    From Wiktionary

Kiwi Sentence Examples

  • New Zealand has also yielded many flightless birds, notably the numerous species and genera of Dinornithidae, some of which survived into the 19th century; Pseudapteryx allied to the Kiwi; Cnemiornis, a big, flightless goose; Aptornis and Notornis, flightless rails; and Harpagornis, a truly gigantic bird of prey with tremendous wings and talons.

  • In 1851 the first kiwi known to have reached England alive was presented to the Zoological Society by Eyre, then lieutenant-governor of New Zealand.

  • From this time the whole structure of the kiwi has certainly been far better known than that of nearly any other bird, and by degrees other examples found their way to England, some of which were distributed to the various museums of the Continent and of America.'

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Words near kiwi in the Dictionary