Etymology

whaka- +‎ nanu (“mixed, jumbled”)Category:Māori terms prefixed with whaka-#NANU.

Verb

whakananu (passive whakananua or whakananutia)Category:Māori lemmas#WAKANANUCategory:Māori verbs#WAKANANUCategory:Māori entries with incorrect language header#WAKANANUCategory:Pages with entries#WHAKANANUCategory:Pages with 1 entry#WHAKANANU

1. to contaminate
   • 1903 December 1, Rēweti Kōhere, “Te Reo Maori”, in Te Pipiwharauroa‎, page 2:

     Kua whakananu te reo inaianei, kua tapiritia ki te reo kihi... E kitea ana e ahau i roto i ngā pukapuka tuku mai ki Te Pipiwharauroa ētahi kupu a te pākehā kahore nei i mārama ki a au he aha rā te tikanga.

     [Māori] language is now contaminated, it has been made gibberish... I have seen letters sent to Te Pipiwharauroa with English [loan] words which I did not understand their meanings clearly.

     Category:Māori terms with quotations#WAKANANU

2. to confuse, to make something incoherent or unintelligible
3. to jumble
4. to mix

   Synonyms: natu, konatu, ranu, whakaranu, whāranu

Further reading

• Williams, Herbert William (1917), “nanu”, in A Dictionary of the Maori Language, page 254
• John C. Moorfield (2011), “whakananu”, in Te Aka: Māori–English, English–Māori Dictionary and Index‎, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, →ISBN