Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of a Mesoamerican Indian people inhabiting southeast Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, whose civilization reached its height around AD 300–900. The Maya are noted for their architecture and city planning, their mathematics and calendar, and their hieroglyphic writing system.
  • noun A modern-day descendant of this people.
  • noun Any of the Mayan languages, especially Quiché and Yucatec.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Hindu Philos.) The name (in Vedantic philosphy) for the doctrine of the unreality of matter, called, in English, idealism; hence, nothingness; vanity; illusion.
  • noun (Hindu Philos.) the Hindu goddess personifying the power that creates phenomena.
  • noun (Hindu Philos.) the power to produce illusions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A female given name of modern usage.
  • proper noun A member of a Mesoamerican civilization that existed in and around Guatemala in the 4th to 10th centuries.
  • proper noun A descendant of these people.
  • proper noun Any of the Mayan languages, such as Quiché and Yucatec.
  • proper noun In Sanskrit, illusion; God's physical and metaphysical creation (literally, "not this").
  • proper noun A female given name used in India.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Spanish.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Maria, ultimately from Hebrew, and from Maia, from Latin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Self-designation of the Yucatec Mayas.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Sanskrit

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