māhū

From Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *maafuu (“unenergetic, not passionate”). Cognate with Maori māhū (“gentle, easy”), Tahitian māhū.

māhū

1. a person of the third gender, having traditional spiritual and social roles in the cultures of Hawaii and Tahiti
2. homosexual
3. effeminate boy or man
4. hermaphrodite
5. eunuch

• "The Meaning of Māhū" Outright International
• “māhū” in Ka‘ōnohi‘ulaokamanō Kai, Manomano, KAI LOA Inc.
• māhū in Combined Hawaiian Dictionary, at trussel2.com.

From Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *maafuu (“unenergetic, not passionate”). Cognate with Hawaiian māhū,

māhū

1. to be gentle

• “māhū” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.
• Ross Clark and Simon J. Greenhill, editors (2011), “maafuu”, in “POLLEX-Online: The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online”, in Oceanic Linguistics, volume 50, number 2, pages 551-559