Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for September 4, 2026
Archive · September 4, 2026
PAU
say it: POW
Finished, ended, through, done — and, in the same entry, all, entirely, completely, consumed.
What it means
Pau is given by Pukui and Elbert as: finished, ended, through, terminated, completed, over, all done; final, finishing; entirely, completely, very much; after; all, to have all; to be completely possessed, consumed, destroyed. It is one of the shortest words in the language and one of the biggest.
Two things are packed in here that English keeps in separate drawers. The first is done — the lesson is over, the shift is finished, the meeting ended. The second is all — the whole of it, nothing left out. Pau i ka lilo, Pukui-Elbert gives, is “all sold, gone, taken, consumed.” The same word that closes a thing also accounts for every last piece of it.
That second sense is why pau turns up as an intensifier in front of other words, and why the causative hoʻopau covers such a long list: to put an end to, finish, get rid of, terminate, annul, cancel, revoke, repeal, abolish — and, plainly, to dismiss or discharge someone from work. A small word doing heavy administrative labor.
How to use it
Pau is a stative verb. It sits in front of the thing that is finished, and it does not need a helper. You will also hear it on its own — a single syllable that ends a conversation, a chore, or an argument.
pau ka haʻawina
The lesson is finished. A Pukui-Elbert example sentence, and the cleanest model of the everyday pattern: pau plus the thing that is over. Swap in the noun you need.
pau hana
Work finished — quitting time, and by extension the whole stretch of the evening that follows it. Literally pau (done) plus hana (work). Pukui-Elbert lists “to dismiss or discharge, as from work” under the causative hoʻopau; the two-word phrase itself is the most-used piece of Hawaiian in daily local speech, and today is Friday.
a pau
All, entirely. Given in Māmaka Kaiao. This is the all sense rather than the done sense — it follows what it is counting up, as in nā mea a pau, all the things. Andrews (1865) records a pau loa for “all; every one; everything.”
pau Pele, pau manō
“Consumed by Pele, consumed by a shark.” Pukui and Elbert record this as an oath — may I be destroyed if I have not spoken the truth. Not a phrase for casual use. It is here because it shows how far the word travels: the same pau that ends your shift is the one you stake your honesty on.
Why this word matters
The last word on this page was haʻaheo — pride, and the vanity the dictionary refuses to separate from it. Pau is the opposite kind of word. It makes no judgement at all. It simply says: that is the end of that.
It is Friday, which in Hawaiʻi means pau hana. Not “happy hour” — the phrase is not about a drink, it is about a boundary. Work is finished. What follows belongs to somebody else: the family, the beach, the yard, the folding chairs. A place that names the end of the workday in its own language is a place that takes the end of the workday seriously.
Pau is not a sad word. It is a clean one. The thing is over, and nothing was left behind.
There is a second life to it. Because pau also means all, the word carries a note of completeness that “finished” alone does not. Pau poʻo, pau hiʻu — consumed head, consumed tail — is Pukui-Elbert’s phrase for total destruction, nothing remaining. Ending and totality are the same idea in this language. To finish something properly is to have used all of it.
Which is a fair way to think about a week. Not that it stopped, but that it was spent. Down in Waikīkī there is a street called Pau, named because the canoe races on the Ala Wai finished there. Somebody looked at the place where the paddling ended and gave it the plainest possible name. Pau. Done. Go home.
Sources
The definitions of pau — finished, ended, through, terminated, completed, over, all done; entirely, completely; all, to have all; consumed, destroyed — together with the example sentences pau ka haʻawina, pau i ka lilo, pau Pele, pau manō and pau poʻo, pau hiʻu, and the causative hoʻopau (“to dismiss or discharge, as from work”), are from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert, 1986), consulted via wehewehe.org and the UH Hilo Wehewehe Wikiwiki entry. A pau (“all, entirely”) is from Māmaka Kaiao (2003); a pau loa (“all; every one; everything”) is from Andrews (1865); both are on the same Wehewehe Wikiwiki page. Pau Street in Waikīkī, “finished” for the canoe races that ended there, is from Place Names of Hawaiʻi (Pukui, Elbert & Mookini, 1974). Pau hana is given here as everyday usage — the compound of pau and hana — not as a dictionary headword.