Pronounced: ah-toe-TEH-lick, adj
Notes: A good word to know (but I didn’t know it)
Yesterday’s word
The word wahine is
- a Polynesian woman
- a female surfer
First usage
The references I checked are not clear; one says that our word came into English in the late 1700s; another one has the mid-1800s (but also see the Comments below).
Background / Comments
Our word came from the Maori word wahine; it usually referred to a Maori wife. It became used for a woman in Hawaii and in Tahiti (but the Tahitian word is spelled with a “v” instead of with a “w”). Around 1950, as more women began surfing, the second meaning above came into usage.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 