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Kīkākila comes from two English words. Kīkā comes from the English word "guitar." Kila is from the English word "steel." Put them together and you get the Hawaiian word for steel guitar.
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Our Hawaiian word for today is papaheʻenalu. Papa can mean a "board or almost any kind of flat surface." Adding heʻe nalu to it makes it a surfboard. Heʻe means "to slide or surf," and nalu means "wave." Put it all together and you get a surfboard.
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Another popular Hawaiian place name that is often mispronounced is Nānākuli. It has stresses on both the first and second syllables. It is that beautiful place on leeward Oʻahu and it means “look” (Nānā) “at knee” (kuli).
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Today's word of the day is a well-known name, Liliʻuokalani. She was our last queen, overthrown in January 1893. Many mispronounce because of familiarity with the English name Lily.
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If you barbecue a lot, you probably already know today's word of the day. Pūlehu means to broil. Although it most correctly means broiling as you would sweet potatoes, breadfruit or bananas placed on hot embers. We often used pūlehu to describe meat that has been broiled.
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Pua is a very well known and often used Hawaiian word. In common usage it means: flower, blossom, even the tassel and stem of sugar cane. It means to bloom, and among its many other meanings is child, descendant, offspring.
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Pālule-t means t-shirt. And as you may have guessed, it is a relatively new term. Yes, pālule means "shirt," and we just added the modifier "T" following the noun.
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Our Hawaiian word for today is kahuna, a word that is so often misused. Kahuna means: priest, sorcerer, magician, wizard, minister, expert in any profession whether male or female. In the year 1845, lawyers, doctors, surgeons, and dentists were all called kahuna.
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Kaulana means famous, celebrated, renowned, well-known.
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Akua has many meanings, but none more common in today's Hawaiian than "god." In Hawaiian, there are many different kinds of gods, and akua can mean goddess, spirit, ghost, devil, image, idol, divine, even a corpse.
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Leo means voice, tone, tune, melody, sound, command, and more. It is most often used today to mean voice and is heard often in describing singers, such as the leo nahenahe, or as the name of the private preschool Punanaleo, “the voice nest.”
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Our Hawaiian Word of the Day is often mispronounced place name, Haʻikū. It means “a sharp break or to speak abruptly,” and is often confused with the Japanese term haiku for a type of poetry.