maya
/maɪ.ə/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.87 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
2
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A member or descendant of various peoples:
noun
A member or descendant of various peoples:
noun
A member or descendant of various peoples:
noun
A member or descendant of various peoples:
name
The Yucatec Maya language.
Example Sentences
- "When her little friends asked her what her name was, her father replied that it was Conchita - his diminutive for Maria de la Concepción. "Con-what?" they would ask again, aware, apparently, that con in French is a fool, an idiot. So her parents started calling her Maria, which from the little girl's lips soon began to sound like Maya. "Maya!" exclaimed her father. "It's perfect. It means the greatest illusion on earth." So Maya it was from then on - Maya Walter."
- "Eventually, Pran and Savita decided by correspondence on Maya. Its two simple syllables meant, among other things: the goddess Lakshmi, illusion, fascination, art, the goddess Durga, kindness, and the name of the mother of Buddha. It also meant: ignorance, delusion, fraud, guile, and hypocrisy; but no one who named their daughter Maya ever paid any attention to those pejorative possibilities. - - - 'Why ever not, Ma?' said Meenakshi.'It's a very Bengali name, a very nice name.'"
- "Shankara prescribed meditative reflection, through which each individual could pierce the veil of maya and come to recognize the identity between his or her essence and the universal spirit."
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish maya, from Yucatec Maya mayab (“flat”) or Yucatec Maya maaya, a self-designation of the northern Maya for themselves, in the form maya’ found in compounds and phrases e.g. maya’ wíinik (“Maya man”).
Word Breakdown
- Root: mayab, maaya
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /maɪ.ə/
- British English: /maɪ.ə/