mako

Etymology

It is borrowed from Māori mako (“mako shark”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Etymonline glosses the Māori word as "shark, shark's tooth" and calls its further origin uncertain;^[7] Wiktionary takes it as a Southern Māori dialect form of the more usual mangō (“shark”).^[1] The 1976 Supplement to the OED had treated the word mako in J. G. Scheuchzer's 1727 translation of Engelbert Kaempfer's “History of Japan” as an early example; the revised OED (2000) explains that this mako in fact stands for the Japanese name of the sperm whale.^[2] Etymonline notes the same doubt, adding that Kaempfer's description fits neither the shark nor the whale.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A large blue mackerel shark of New Zealand waters: 1848, in Richard Taylor's A Leaf from the Natural History of New Zealand.^[2][3] Etymonline gives 1820, in a book on the languages of New Zealand, as the first record if the 1727 one is set aside,^[7] and Dictionary.com, which counts the Kaempfer quotation, dates the word to 1720–30.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English through New Zealand, where Morris's Austral English (1898) recorded it as the Māori name of a shark whose teeth the Māori wore as ornaments.^[9] That use survives in New Zealand English, where a mako or mako tooth is such an ornament.^[10][11] In wider use the name passed to the whole genus Isurus, fast mackerel sharks of warm and temperate seas that are prized as game fish, and it is often expanded to mako shark.^[2][3][12]

Timeline

• 1848 – a large blue mackerel shark of New Zealand waters.^[2][3]
• 1898 – the shark's teeth noted as Māori ornaments.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, fast mackerel shark of the genus Isurus, with a deep blue back and a pointed snout, found in warm and temperate seas and valued as a game fish; also called mako shark and blue pointer.^{[2][3][12][11]}
2. (New Zealand) A mako's tooth worn as an ornament, especially by Māori.^[11][10]

Usage notes

A second mako in New Zealand English, also from Māori and also first recorded in 1848, is the small tree Aristotelia serrata, the wineberry, with clusters of pink flowers and dark red berries; it is also called makomako.^{[2][4][11][13]} Collins also gives mako as a New Zealand name of the bellbird.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Morris, Edward E. (1898), Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages, London: Macmillan
10. ^ a b Deverson, Tony; Kennedy, Graeme, eds. (2005), The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary, Auckland: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b The Macquarie Dictionary (2013), 6th ed., Sydney: Macquarie Dictionary Publishers
13. ^ Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press