What is "pa"

Pa \Pa\ (p[aum]), n. A shortened form of Papa.

1804, colloquial shortening of papa (q.v.).

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context colloquial English) Father, papa. 2 A short form of grandpa, grandfather. Etymology 2

alt. A Maori fort. n. A Maori fort.

1. n. an informal term for a father; probably derived from baby talk [syn: dad, dada, daddy, papa, pappa, pater, pop]

2. a short-lived radioactive metallic element formed from uranium and disintegrating into actinium and then into lead [syn: protactinium, protoactinium, atomic number 91]

3. a unit of pressure equal to one newton per square meter [syn: pascal]

4. a Mid-Atlantic state; one of the original 13 colonies [syn: Pennsylvania, Keystone State]

5. an electronic amplification system used as a communication system in public areas [syn: public address system, P.A. system, PA system, P.A.]

Pâ is a town in the Pâ Department of Balé Province in south-western Burkina Faso. The town has a population of 8649 and it is the capital of Pâ Department.

The word pā (IPA ) can refer to any Māori village or defensive settlement, but often refers to hill forts – fortified settlements with palisades and defensive terraces – and also to fortified villages. Pā are mainly in the North Island of New Zealand, north of Lake Taupo. Over 5000 sites have been located, photographed and examined although few have been subject to detailed analysis. No pā have been yet located from the early colonization period when early Polynesian-Māori colonizers lived in the lower South Island. Variations similar to pā are found throughout central Polynesia, in the islands of Fiji, Tonga and the Marquesas Islands.

In Māori culture, a great pā represented the mana and strategic ability of an iwi, as personified by a rangatira. Pā are located in various defensible locations around the territory (rohe) of an iwi to protect fertile plantation sites and food supplies.

Almost all pā are found on prominent raised ground, especially volcanic hills. The natural slope of the hill is then terraced. Dormant volcanoes were commonly used for pā in Auckland. Pā are multipurpose in function. Pā that have been extensively studied after the New Zealand Wars and more recently were found to safeguard food and water storage sites or wells, food storage pits (especially kūmara), and small integrated plantations, maintained inside the pā. Recent studies have shown that in most cases, few people lived long term in a single pā, and that iwi maintained several pā at once, often under the control of a hapū (subtribe). The area in between pā were primarily common residential and horticultural sites. A tourist attraction of authentic pā engineering is at Maungawhau / Mount Eden.

Pa is a farce-musical comedy in three acts by Cal Wallace that was originally performed by the Sol Smith Russell Company. The play made its New York premier at the Standard Theatre on February 14, 1887.

is one of syllable in Javanese script that represent the sound /pɔ/, /pa/. It is transliterated to Latin as "pa", and sometimes in Indonesian orthography as "po". It has another form (pasangan), which is , but represented by a single Unicode code point, U+A9A5.

The cuneiform pa sign, (as sumerogram, PA), has many uses in both the 14th century BC Amarna letters and the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is routinely and commonly used to spell the Akkadian language word "pānu", face, presence, and with a preposition (ex. a na pā nu), before. In the photo of the obverse of EA 364, it is used to spell Akkadian "eperu", 'dust', (EA 364, lines 7,8: "...and ( ù dust (IŠ (sumerogram)=dust)) and ( u)\ dust "-( a-pa- ru). (The two "and"-s are u-(no. 3), then u-(no. 1)-( u (cuneiform))(the bottom half).)

The alphabetic/syllabic uses and sumerograms of the 'pa' sign from the Epic of Gilgamesh:

Its usage numbers from the Epic of Gilgamesh are as follows: hat-(21), pa-(209), PA-(11), SÀG-(1). In the Amarna letters the start of "messenger Xxxxx" is often spelled in cuneiform characters: "LÚ.PA.X.y.z" (etc.), (LÚ the beginning determinative for Man).