Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for August 24, 2026
Archive · August 24, 2026
AHONUI
say it: ah-ho-NOO-ee
Patience; patient, enduring, long suffering; to tolerate. Literally, great breath — aho, breath, + nui, great.
What it means
Ahonui is patience. Pukui and Elbert give it plainly: patience; patient, enduring, long suffering; to tolerate. Then they give the literal reading, and the literal reading is the whole lesson — great breath.
Take it apart. Nui is great, big, much. Aho is breath, and to breathe. So patience, in this language, is not a personality trait you either have or lack. It is a measurement. It is how long you can hold your breath before you come up.
There is a second meaning sitting in aho that is worth knowing: line, cord, lashing, fishing line. The same short word covers the breath in your chest and the cord in your hand. Both are things that pay out slowly, and both hold under load only if they are long enough.
How to use it
Ahonui works as a noun, an adjective, and — with the causative prefix — a thing you tell someone to do.
he kanaka ahonui
a patient person. The adjective use, sitting right after the noun the way Hawaiian adjectives do.
E hoʻāhonui aʻe ā pau kēia pilikia
be patient until this trouble is over. Straight from the dictionary. Hoʻo- (here hoʻā-) turns the state into an instruction, and pilikia is trouble of any size — a flat tire or a hard year.
ahonui ʻole
impatient. ʻOle negates. Useful to know so the good version has something to push against.
aho loa
not ahonui, but its close cousin — a long line, and also to hold the breath a long time, as divers and chanters do. Same root, same idea, measured in seconds instead of years.
Why this word matters
English patience comes from a Latin root meaning to suffer. It frames waiting as something done to you. Hawaiian frames it as capacity — something you build, the way a diver builds breath.
Patience here is not passive. It is lung volume.
That reading holds up in the dictionary itself. Aho loa is listed for divers and for chanters: people who train, deliberately, to go longer than is comfortable. Nobody is born with a long breath. You get one by going under again and again.
Ahonui is also written into state law. In 1986 the Legislature passed the Aloha Spirit statute, which names five traits — akahai, lōkahi, ʻoluʻolu, haʻahaʻa, and ahonui — and glosses the last one as “patience, to be expressed with perseverance.” Note the second half. Patience that just sits there is not what the word is asking for.
Which makes it a fair word for a Monday. Most of what matters on this island — a loʻi coming in, a kid growing up, an ʻōhiʻa taking hold in fresh lava — runs on a clock nobody can hurry. Ahonui is the instruction for that clock: take a bigger breath, and stay down a little longer.
Sources
Definitions and example phrases from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert), consulted via wehewehe.org and the UH Hilo Wehewehe Wikiwiki entries for ahonui and aho. The definition line is cross-checked against the University of Hawaiʻi ʻŌlelo of the Week entry for ahonui. The Aloha Spirit language is quoted from Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes §5-7.5 (L 1986, c 202, §1); the statute is printed without diacritical marks.