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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCALNo exact match for “Sacred” in this partial English subset. That does not mean the full research corpus—or linguistic scholarship—has no record. Check the original dictionary entry ↗
INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Browse the independently attributed sources →Sacred
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013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
adjective · noun · verbcontrarian claim
kapu
A Hawaiian word for what is prohibited, sacred, consecrated, or set apart, continuing the Oceanic tapu family through the characteristic Hawaiian *t to k sound change.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noun · adjective · verbcontrarian claim
taboo
An English borrowing recorded in 1777 from Tongan tabu, now tapu, within an Oceanic family whose reconstructed form joins ritual restriction with sacredness.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗stative · modifier · noundossier summary
tapu
A Māori word for what is sacred, prohibited, restricted, set apart, or under atua protection, inherited within the wider Oceanic *tampu family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗024
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
*
Proto-Oceanic / Austronesian
*tampu
sacred, forbidden; under ritual restriction
- DATE
- Proto-Oceanic reconstruction
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 3
Hawaiian / Austronesian
kapu
prohibited, forbidden, sacred, consecrated, or set apart
- DATE
- Hawaiian record–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Tongan / Austronesian
tabu / tapu
forbidden, prohibited, unlawful; historically also sacred or consecrated
- DATE
- Tongan
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Māori / Austronesian
tapu
sacred, prohibited, restricted, set apart, or under atua protection
- DATE
- Māori record–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
036
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
resolvedestablishedposition text
Are the sacred image, celebrity, and computer icon different etymological words?
No. They are semantic extensions within the image-and-likeness family; the later uses do not create separate ancestors.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did taboo originally mean only “forbidden”?
No. The Tongan reflexes and wider Oceanic reconstruction carry a semantic field that includes prohibited, under ritual restriction, sacred, holy, and consecrated.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Does tapu mean only “forbidden”?
No. Te Aka defines a culturally specific field spanning sacredness, restriction, being set apart, prohibition, atua protection, and social or environmental responsibility.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 3
RANK 145GRADE Aranked reveal
English taboo did not come from Māori tapu.
Māori tapu and English taboo meet deeper in the Oceanic family. English borrowed the Tongan reflex; Māori independently preserves sacredness, prohibition, restriction, and atua protection.
RANK 146GRADE Aranked reveal
The k in kapu is a fossilized sound change.
Hawaiian kapu and Māori tapu are not misspellings of one another: Hawaiian regularly changed inherited *t toward k while preserving the sacred and prohibited semantic field.
RANK 159GRADE Aranked reveal
It did not begin as merely “forbidden.”
Tongan and reconstructed Oceanic evidence joins prohibition and ritual restriction with sacredness and consecration.
040
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “sacred.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
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