kehua

Borrowed from Maori.

kehua (plural kehuas or kehua)

1. (New Zealand) A ghost; an evil spirit.
   • 1906, Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, page 228:

     An old man explained to me, “The spirits of dead persons are afflicting such sufferers. These kehua control them. If the afflicted person survives he will be the medium of that [evil] spirit. Some people become demented when so affected.”

   • 1924, Elsdon Best, Māori Religion and Mythology: being an account of the cosmogony, anthropogeny, religious beliefs and rites, magic and folk lore of the Māori folk of New Zealand, Part 2, 2005, Te Papa Press, page 42,

     The other aspect of the "etheric double" of the theosophist, that is the wraith or apparitional spirit seen after the death of the body, is the kehua of the Maori.

   • 2001, Patricia Grace, Irihapeti Ramsden, Jonathan Dennis, The Silent Migration: Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club, 1937-1948, page 17:

     We'd say, 'Ready? Steady. Go!' And we'd run past his bedroom. Grandpa would be in his armchair looking out. We'd flash past crying out, ‘Kehua! Kehua!’

• Hauke

Unknown. Possibly related to kehottaa (“to recommend, urge”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkehuɑˣ/, [ˈk̟e̞ɦuɑ̝(ʔ)]
• Rhymes: -ehuɑ
• Hyphenation^(key): ke‧hua

kehua

1. (transitive, usually atelic) to praise, tout, acclaim, commend

   Synonyms: ylistää, kiittää

   Kuinka kehun naista kauniiksi?

   How should I praise a woman's beauty?

   Hän kehui minua artikkelistani.

   He praised me for my article.

2. (dialectal, chiefly Western Finnish) to tell, say

   Synonyms: kertoa, sanoa

• “kehua”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02

• uhkea