Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various flightless ostrichlike birds of the family Dinornithidae that were native to New Zealand and became extinct, probably before 1500.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A gigantic extinct bird of the family Dinornithidæ. See cut under
Dinornis .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several very large extinct species of wingless birds belonging to Dinornis, and other related genera, of the suborder Dinornithes, found in New Zealand. They are allied to the apteryx and the ostrich. They were probably exterminated by the natives before New Zealand was discovered by Europeans. Some species were much larger than the ostrich.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A very large,
extinct ,flightless bird of the familyDinornithidae that was native toNew Zealand ; until its extinction, one species was the largest bird in the world.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun extinct flightless bird of New Zealand
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word moa.
Examples
-
For more information, call 758-5282, e-mail moa@ wfu. edu or visit the museum Web site at www.wfu. edu/moa.
-
If a person keeps their shots within 300 yards (as they should) a rifle that prints 2 moa is more than accurate enough to take big game.
-
If a person keeps their shots within 300 yards (as they should) a rifle that prints 2 moa is more than accurate enough to take big game.
-
Now the moa is officially extinct, being gone since the 12th century, with some lingering possibly into the 1500's.
Archive 2007-02-01 2007
-
While visiting the Auckland museum last month I was fascinated to see the replica of a gigantic bird called a moa, extinct since around 1500 A.D.
Archive 2009-05-01 elena maria vidal 2009
-
While visiting the Auckland museum last month I was fascinated to see the replica of a gigantic bird called a moa, extinct since around 1500 A.D.
The Moa elena maria vidal 2009
-
Whenever I've read about this sucker it's been described as a moa eater.
Baby-Eating Birds Walter Jon Williams 2009
-
The basic facts in the case couldn't be more straightforward: when people first came to New Zealand's northern and southern islands, there were large flightless birds known as moa already living there; today there are many more people and no more moa.
-
Now Zealand formerly possessed several species of dinornis, one of which, called moa by the islanders, was larger than the ostrich.
Earth as Modified by Human Action, The~ Chapter 02 (historical) 1874
-
Now Zealand formerly possessed several species of dinornis, one of which, called moa by the islanders, was larger than the ostrich.
The Earth as Modified by Human Action George P. Marsh 1841
chained_bear commented on the word moa
See usage on tui.
September 22, 2008