Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for August 22, 2026
Archive · August 22, 2026
PUʻUWAI
say it: poo-oo-VYE
Heart — the organ in your chest. Literally a mound of water: puʻu, a hill or lump, + wai, fresh water.
What it means
Puʻuwai is the heart. Pukui and Elbert give it plainly — the muscle in your chest — and then they give you the picture underneath it. The word is built from puʻu, a hill, mound, or lump, and wai, fresh water. A mound of water.
The dictionary explains why: Hawaiians of old understood the heart to hold nothing but water, and named it for what it held. Cut it open and it runs. So the word is not a metaphor somebody reached for. It is an observation, made carefully, and then kept.
There is one honest note the dictionary insists on, and we are going to keep it in. Using puʻuwai as the seat of feeling — the way English says “my heart” and means your whole inner life — is probably a Western import. Before that, the feeling lived lower down, in the naʻau, the gut. Pukui and Elbert note the emotional sense showing up in a chant dated 1853: Ke hōʻeuʻeu nei i ka puʻuwai — stirring now the heart.
How to use it
Puʻuwai rarely travels alone. The dictionary lists it with a modifier attached, and the modifier tells you what kind of person you are describing.
puʻuwai hāmama
generous, openhearted — literally an open heart. Hāmama is what a door does, or a hand. The highest compliment on this list.
puʻuwai haokila
heart of steel; courageous. Hao is iron, kila is steel. Said of someone who does not flinch.
puʻuwai kapalili
a fluttering heart. Kapalili is the trembling of a leaf in wind — nerves, or the good kind of nervous.
puʻuwai ʻeleʻele
black-hearted; a scoundrel, a rogue. The one you do not want said about you. Worth knowing so you recognize it.
Why this word matters
On an island where fresh wai is the whole argument — who has it, where it runs, what it is worth — naming the heart after a mound of water is not a small thing. It puts the most important thing inside you in the same category as the most important thing outside you.
Wai is what a place cannot live without. Puʻuwai is what a person cannot live without. Same word, doing double duty.
We like that the dictionary refuses to tidy this up. It tells you the emotional heart is likely borrowed, and points you back to the naʻau instead. That is a real correction, and most Hawaiian-word posts online quietly skip it. We would rather teach the word with its history attached than hand you a prettier version that is not true.
So use puʻuwai the way it is documented. Puʻuwai hāmama — the open heart — is a description of how somebody actually behaves. Who shares. Who makes room. Who does not keep score. That is a standard you can be held to, not a feeling you can just claim.
There is also a village called Puʻuwai on Niʻihau — the main settlement on the island. A place named heart, on the island that has held the language closest. Our roots connect us.
Sources
The headword, the etymology (puʻu + wai), the note on water in the heart, the caution that the emotional sense is likely a Western concept, the 1853 chant line Ke hōʻeuʻeu nei i ka puʻuwai, and every compound above — puʻuwai hāmama, puʻuwai haokila, puʻuwai kapalili, puʻuwai ʻeleʻele — are from the Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, consulted through Nā Puke Wehewehe ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (wehewehe.org) and the Wehewehe Wikiwiki dictionaries at UH Hilo.