The Word of the Day is also The Word of the Week and will be changed every Monday. For more than 1,400 Hawaiian word entries, go to to the Hawaiian Word Glossary.

Honihoni is the term of the day and week of Monday, June 27, 2011.
 
honihoni. transitive verb. To kiss repeatedly, smell repeatedly or sniff repeatedly. A reduplication of honi.
 For the glossary entry, see honihoni.



Hale li‘ili‘i is the term of the day and week of Monday, June 20, 2011.
 
hale li‘ili‘i. noun. Outhouse. Literally "little (li‘ili‘i) house (hale)."
 For outhouse, see hale li‘ili‘i under the hale entry.



Na‘aukake ‘Amelika is the term of the day and week of Monday, June 13, 2011.
 
na‘aukake ‘Amelika. noun. Hot Dog. Literally means "American sausage."
 For hot dog, see na‘aukake ‘Amelika under the na‘aukake entry.



Wahī ‘eha is the term of the day and week of Monday, June 6, 2011.
 
wahī ‘eha. noun. Bandage. Literally "injury wrapper."
 For the glossary entry, see wahī ‘eha.



Like is the term of the day and week of Monday, May 30, 2011.
 
like. stative verb. Alike, like, similar, equal. It may seem like the Hawaiian word like has been transliterated from the English word like, but the similarity of meaning and spelling is coincidental, or so the Boche would like us to believe.
 For the glossary entry, see like.



Mō‘ī is the term of the day and week of Monday, May 23, 2011.
 
mō‘ī. noun. King, sovereign, monarch. See the chart below.
Use this timeline chart to access the ruling kings and queen entries.





 For the glossary entry, see mō‘ī.



Loio is the term of the day and week of Monday, May 16, 2011.
 
loio. noun. Lawyer, attorney. Transliterated from English "lawyer." The picture above shows Mark Bennett, Hawaii's Attorney General from 2003 to 2010 during the two-term administration of Republican Governor Linda Lingle. I really don't know how good an attorney general he was, but he seems like a great guy. It seems that everytime I've ever seen or heard him on TV, radio or elsewhere, he always likes to tell the joke about why after lawyers die they are always buried in much deeper graves than others. Why are lawyers buried in deeper graves? Because really deep down, lawyers are good people.
 For the glossary entry, see loio.



Ko‘olau is the term of the day and week of Monday, May 9, 2011.
 
ko‘olau. noun, stative verb. Windward side of the islands; windward. Contrast with kona (leeward).
Ko‘olau. (Capitalized) place name. Windward. The windward mountain range on the island of O‘ahu.
 For the glossary entry, see ko‘olau.
 See the Ko‘olau entry in the Hawai‘i Place Names Category.



Laiki is the term of the day and week of Monday, May 2, 2011.
     
laiki. noun. Rice. Transliterated from English "rice." I couldn't keep myself from including a picture of Condoleezza Rice. I ♥ Condi.
 For the glossary entry, see laikai.
 See the laiki entry in the Food & Drink Category.



Lēkiō is the term of the day and week of Monday, April 25, 2011.
 
lēkiō. noun. Radio. Transliterated from the English "radio." The PE dictionary shows the Hawaiian word for radio spelled with only one kahakō on the last vowel, but Māmaka Kaiao shows it spelled with two kahakō. I'm going with the Māmaka Kaiao version.
 For the glossary entry, see lēkiō.



Kaua‘i is the term of the day and week of Monday, April 18, 2011.
 
Kaua‘i. place name. Unknown meaning. A county of the State of Hawai‘i and the fourth largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. On his third voyage of exploration, Captain James Cook became the first European and foreigner to visit the Hawaiian Islands when he made landfall at Waimea, Kaua‘i in January 1778. Kaua‘i is sometimes jokingly refered to as "Hawaii's Original Visitor Destination".
How to pronounce Kaua‘i: KAU–[W]AH–ee
Kaua‘i is commonly mispronounced two different ways. The most common mispronunciation is to pronounce Kaua‘i as if it was spelled like Hawai‘i, but with a K instead of an H as Kawai‘i. The second way Kaua‘i is mispronounced is to pronounce Kaua‘i as if it was spelled like the two syllable word Kawai. Both pronunciations are incorrect. In both of the incorrect pronunciations, the vowel u is wrongly treated as if it were a w consonant. At least Kawai recognizes there is only one i in Kaua‘i, but it disregards the ‘okina between the a and i. However unique and strange, the ‘okina is a real consonant in the Hawaiian language. The ‘okina affects pronunciation so it should not be ignored in writing or speech. An ʻokina separates the a and the i in Kaua‘i and indicates that there is no ai diphthong. Hawaiian diphthongs are two vowels pronounced together, like the ai diphthongs in the place names Waikīkī and Hawai‘i. For various reasons, the ‘okina is often omitted from the spelling of Hawaiian words that have them. Although the omission of the ‘okina may make understandable a mistake in pronunciation, it is not a justification for a change in pronunciation. So how is Kaua‘i correctly pronounced? First, there is an au diphthong in Kaua‘i that is not recognized in the Kawai‘i and Kawai pronunciations. Au should be pronounced like the au diphthong in the word for the Hawaiian feast known as a lū‘au. The first syllable is Kau (rhymes with cow and how) and is pronounced like the KAU in kaukau and Kalākaua. The second syllable has a w-glide. W-glides are natural occurrences of the spoken Hawaiian language. W-glides can follow u vowels. In the case of the word Kauaʻi, a w-glide follows the first syllable and is added to the front end of the second syllable, so the second syllable is pronounced like [W]AH. The last syllable is pronounced like ee. So put it all together and you get KAU–[W]AH–ee. All the capitalized syllables receive stress. It amazes me that so many people who live in Hawai‘i mispronounce this word. Hawaiian pronunciation is actually very simple and straight forward, but problems with correct pronunciation arise, because some words have been corrupted in usage by lazy speakers.
 For the glossary entry, see Kaua‘i.
 See the Kaua‘i entry in the Hawai‘i Place Names Category.



Kia‘āina is the term of the day and week of Monday, April 11, 2011.

kia‘āina. noun. Governor, governorship. Literally "prop [of the] land." Governor, as a governor of a state; a state governor. The pictures above show the seven governors of Hawai‘i during statehood and they are listed below.
 William F. Quinn 1959 - 1962
 John A. Burns 1962 - 1974
 George Ariyoshi 1974 - 1986
 John D. Waihee III 1986 - 1994
 Ben Cayetano 1994 - 2002
 Linda Lingle 2002 - 2010
 Neil Abercrombie 2010 - Present
 For the glossary entry, see kia‘āina.
 See the kia‘āina entry in the Family & Relationships Category.



Hēkī is the term of the day and week of Monday, April 4, 2011.
 
hēkī. noun. Jet. This word comes from Māmaka Kaiao and is a contraction of the two words hele and kikī (to flow swifty). Used in the term for jet airplane, mokulele hēkī. The picture shows the F-22 Raptor built by Lockheed Martin exclusively for the US military. The F-22 is a stealthly fifth-generation jet fighter aircraft and the most awesome jet fighter in the world.
 For the glossary entry, see hēkī.



‘Auhau is the term of the day and week of Monday, March 28, 2011.
   
‘auhau. noun. Tax. I remember this word because when I think of taxes it pains me, so I think "ow!" Then I wonder about the necessity of many taxes and I think "how?" Ow-how is kind of how ‘auhau is pronounced. Taxes in the United States of America are out of control, more so with government spending, but that is another story. On January 16, 2011, I received an email from Newsmax.com with an interesting article "The Best Country for Tax Simplicity — and the Worst" that discussed an analysis of the world’s tax codes by the World Bank and the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. According to the report, "The typical small business in the United States might need to spend 187 hours a year to comply with the nation’s tax code. In the Indian Ocean nation of Maldives, compliance could take less than an hour…." The report went on to say that "The United States ranks 66th among the 183 nations in hours spent complying with tax regulations." Bean-counting pencil-pushers contribute very little if anything to a productive and prosperous nation. Newsmax also said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disclosed that "In the United States, the tax code rose from 1.4 million words to 3.8 million between 2001 and February 2010…." and "…from 400 pages to about 70,000 since 1913." The English version of the famously long novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is 560,000 words in length. The tax code is 6.785 times longer than War and Peace. Reading the tax code would be like reading War and Peace seven (7) times. Seven frigging times!
 For the glossary entry, see ‘auhau.



Kai e‘e is the term of the day and week of Monday, March 21, 2011.
 
kai e‘e. noun. Tsunami, tidal wave. Literally "mounting sea."
 For the glossary entry, see kai e‘e.



Hale hō‘ike‘ike i‘a is the term of the day and week of Monday, March 14, 2011.
 
hale hō‘ike‘ike i‘a. noun. Aquarium. A building or institution in which fish and other marine animals or plants are kept for exhibit. Aquarium = fish (i‘a) + exhibition (hō‘ike‘ike) + hall or building (hale). The word i‘a is usually used to mean fish, but in a broader sense it can refer to any marine animal. For aquarium in the sense of a fish tank, see pahu i‘a.
 For the glossary entry, see hale hō‘ike‘ike i‘a.



Mehameha is the term of the day and week of Monday, March 7, 2011.
 
mehameha. noun. Loneliness, solitude.
mehameha. stative verb. Lonely. Mehameha is used in the name of, prehaps the most famous Hawaiian, King Kamehameha the Great. Kamehameha means the "the lonely one."
 For the glossary entry, see mehameha.



Kahahō is the term of the day and week of Monday, January 28, 2011.
 
kahakō. noun. Macron. The image above shows the diacritic mark, called a kahakō in Hawaiian and a macron in English, above the 5 Hawaiian vowels. A kahakō makes a vowel and the syllable associated with it a long sound, with approximately a double count of length of a regular vowel. And syllables with a kahakō always receive stress when pronounced. Kahakō is comprised of the two words, kaha (mark) and kō (long vowel sound) and literally means "long vowel sound mark."Along with the ‘okina, the kahakō is an unusal "element" of the Hawaiian language. For various reasons, the ‘okina and kahakō are often excluded in the spelling of Hawaiian words, but the ‘okina and kahakō are important for correct spelling and pronunciation; they are just as important as any Hawaiian letter. For instance, you can spell the place name Waikīkī without the two kahakō as Waikiki, however the word Waikiki is an Anglicized version of a Hawaiian word and to that extent it is a legitimate spelling, but it is not a correctly spelled Hawaiian word.
 For the glossary entry, see kahakō.



‘Okina is the term of the day and week of Monday, Feruary 21, 2011.
 
‘okina. noun. Glottal stop. Literally means "cutting off." The ‘okina is represented in writing as an upside-down or inverted apostrophe. Sometimes the ‘okina is called a diacritical mark, but it is not a diacritical mark. The only diacritic mark in the Hawaiian language is the kahakō. Along with the kahakō, the ‘okina is an unusal "element" of the Hawaiian language. As strange as it may seem, the ‘okina is a real and full fledged consonant in the Hawaiian language, however it is a unique consonant in that it doesn't have a sound like the other consonants. The ‘okina is what is called a “voiceless glottal plosive”, which makes it sort of a silent consonant. For various reasons, the ‘okina and kahakō are often excluded in the spelling of Hawaiian words, but the ‘okina and kahakō are important for correct spelling and pronunciation; they are just as important as any Hawaiian letter. For instance, the not so well known word ka‘i is a two syllable word and means "to lead, to direct", but remove the ‘okina and it becomes the much better known word kai which is a one syllable word and means "sea." Also, you can spell the place name Hawai‘i without the ‘okina as Hawaii, however Hawaii is an Anglicized version of a Hawaiian word and to that extent it is a legitimate spelling, but is not a correctly spelled Hawaiian word.
‘okina. noun. The Hawaiian letter "‘." As strange as it may seem the okina is a full-fledged Hawaiian consonant, so there are 13 letters in the Hawaiian language. They are a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p, w, ‘ (‘okina). It is often incorrectly stated that the Hawaiian language has only 12 letters because the ‘okina is incorrectly disregarded as a consonant.
 For the glossary entry, see ‘okina.



Puka is the term of the day and week of Monday, January 31, 2011.
 
puka. noun. Hole. The image above shows a puka. About every 5 seconds, Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett will emerge from the opening in the hole.
puka. noun. Door, entrance, gate, opening.
puka. intransitive verb. To pass through, emerge.
puka. intransitive verb. To graduate.
 For the glossary entry, see puka.

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