PERMANENT SOURCE RECORD
ALL SOURCES ↗BIBLIOGRAPHIC IDENTITYmw-taboo
SOURCE
RECORD.
One work. Every claim that depends on it. No citation without a consequence you can inspect.
10 PUBLIC LINKS INTO THE GRAPH.
This count excludes duplicate dossier-path citations. Open the claims below to see exactly how the source is used.
historical dictionarymw-taboo
Taboo — Word History
- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster Editors
- YEAR
- 2026
- PUBLISHER
- Merriam-Webster
- DOI
- Not recorded
- SOURCE TYPE
- historical dictionary
- EXTERNAL RECORD
- OPEN ORIGINAL ↗
012
CONTRARIAN TRUTH CLAIMS
RANKED REVEALS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
RANK 145GRADE Asupports
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.
*tampu
*tampu → tapu
Word History — Tongan tabuSecures the actual English donor.
tapu dossier ↗truth record ↗85UNVEILING
RANK 159GRADE Asupports
It did not begin as merely “forbidden.”
Tongan and reconstructed Oceanic evidence joins prohibition and ritual restriction with sacredness and consecration.
*tampu
*tampu → tabu / tapu → taboo
Word History — Tongan tabuEstablishes the direct borrowing route.
taboo dossier ↗truth record ↗85UNVEILING
023
SCHOLARLY DISAGREEMENT
DISPUTE POSITIONS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
resolvedsupportsestablished
Did Hawaiian kapu directly give English taboo?
No. English taboo is traced to Tongan tabu. Hawaiian kapu is a cognate reflex whose resemblance reveals family history, not the borrowing event.
Word History — Tongan tabuNames the actual English donor.
resolvedsupportsestablished
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.
Word History — Tongan tabuEstablishes the direct Tongan source.
resolvedsupportsestablished
Did English taboo come from Māori tapu?
No. Merriam-Webster identifies Tongan tabu as the English donor. Māori tapu is a related Oceanic reflex, not the borrowing source.
Word History — Tongan tabuIdentifies the direct English source as Tongan.
031
CANONICAL RELATIONSHIP CLAIMS
EDGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
EDGE 312supportsestablished
taboo → tabu / tapu
Present-Day English → Tongan · borrowing
- SOUND
- Tongan tabu was adapted to the English spelling taboo and English phonology.
- MEANING
- A Polynesian field joining sacredness and prohibition became an English noun, adjective, and verb for prohibited things and acts.
- SCHOLAR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster Editors · POLLEX editors
Word History — Etymology; First Known UseIdentifies Tongan tabu and reports English use in 1777.
041
LEXICAL ATTESTATIONS
WITNESSES REPORTED BY THIS SOURCE
tabooSOURCE-REPORTED
taboo
English lexicographic first-use record for taboo
OPEN WITNESS 69 ↗051
COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE
COGNATES, DESCENDANTS, AND RELATIVES
taboo
Present-Day EnglishEnglish borrowing from Tongan, a sibling Oceanic reflex; not a borrowing from Māori tapu.
062
GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL CLAIMS
JOURNEY STAGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
stage 2supports
Tonga
Identifies the Tongan source of English taboo.
Word History — Tongan tabu · regionalstage 3supports
Global English
Reports 1777 as the English first-known-use year.
First Known Use · global070
NON-GENEALOGICAL CONNECTIONS
HISTORICAL CONTEXT, KEPT SEPARATE
No non-genealogical context link currently cites this source.
083
WORD-FAMILY REUSE
DOSSIERS THAT DEPEND ON THIS SOURCE
1 entry-scoped citations map reviewed dossier paths onto the canonical claims above.