Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for July 29, 2026
Archive · July 29, 2026
LEO
say it: LEH-oh
Voice, sound, tone — also a plea or verbal message; to speak, to make a sound. Your voice, the voice of the sea, the voice of a people.
What it means
In the Pukui–Elbert dictionary, leo covers voice, tone, tune, melody, sound, command, advice, plea, and verbal message — and as a verb, to speak or make a sound. It is a small word carrying everything the ear receives and everything a person gives voice to.
The reach of leo is wide on purpose. It is the everyday word for a person’s voice — kona leo, “her voice” — but Hawaiian also gives a leo to things that are not people. The sea has one. The wind has one. A song is carried on one.
Leo keeps close company with two relatives you may recognize: ʻōlelo, speech and language (our word from June 30), and alelo, the tongue itself. Tongue, voice, language — Hawaiian strings them together in sound as well as in meaning.
How to use it
Leo turns up in the dictionary’s own examples, in mele, and in a collected proverb. Each of these is attested:
kona leo — his or her voice. The dictionary’s own example of leo in everyday speech: the voice that belongs to someone.
ka leo o ke kai — the voice of the sea. A phrase carried in mele: the ocean is not just heard in Hawaiian, it speaks.
He ʻalalā, he manu leo nui — “An ʻalalā, a loud-voiced bird.” An ʻōlelo noʻeau collected by Mary Kawena Pukui, said of someone with a big, carrying voice — named for the Hawaiian crow, famous for its call.
Why this word matters
When Hawaiians talk about the life of the language itself, leo is the word they reach for. In the 1970s, the radio program Ka Leo Hawaiʻi put native speakers on the air week after week, recording hundreds of hours of mānaleo — voices that today’s learners still study. The name says it plainly: the Hawaiian voice.
A language does not live on a page. It lives in the leo — in every voice that says the words out loud.
That is why this page asks you to say it, not just read it. A word you have only seen is a word you half-know. Give leo your leo: say it in the truck, say it to the dog, say it badly and then say it better.
And notice what the word teaches. In Hawaiian, the sea has a voice. The wind has a voice. To grow up with leo is to grow up listening — to people, and to the places that were speaking long before we arrived.
Sources
Wehewehe Wikiwiki / Wehewehe.org — Pukui & Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary (1986)
Leo: voice, tone, tune, melody, sound, command, advice, plea, verbal message; to speak, make a sound. Dictionary example: kona leo (his/her voice); related entries ʻōlelo (language, speech) and alelo (tongue).
The saying He ʻalalā, he manu leo nui is collected in Mary Kawena Pukui, ʻŌlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs and Poetical Sayings (Bishop Museum Press). Ka Leo Hawaiʻi was a Hawaiian-language radio program begun in the 1970s that recorded native speakers for future generations.