Manuhiri means: Guests / Vistors.
Brief post today to keep up the habit. Looking at Te Aka’s entry for ‘manuhiri’ for a prompt for today’s post, I saw that it included ‘kaiwhakatau manuhiri’ as the kupu for ‘receptionist’.
This is a use of the prefix ‘kai’ which can be prepended to a verb which specifies an action, in order to make a new noun to refer to the person who does that action.
So:
This prefix can only be used on transitive verbs (verbs which take a direct object that the verb happens to). It can also only be used to create words that refer to people.
The verb whakatau has a range of meanings including:
Kaiwhakatau is listed on Te Aka only with the definitions “arbiter” or “actor” but my assumption is that in “kaiwhakatau manuhiri” it’s using the definition relating to welcoming someone to mean someone who welcomes visitors.