Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for September 11, 2026
Archive · September 11, 2026
KŪPAʻA
say it: koo-PAH-ah
Steadfast, firm, constant, immovable; loyal, faithful, determined — and, as a noun, loyalty, allegiance, firmness.
What it means
Kūpaʻa is given by Pukui and Elbert as: steadfast, firm, constant, immovable; loyal, faithful; determined — and, as a noun, loyalty, allegiance, firmness. It works as both a verb and a noun, which is worth noticing: in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, staying put and the quality of staying put are the same word.
Take it apart and it explains itself. Kū is to stand. Paʻa is firm, fixed, solid, held fast. Andrews, writing all the way back in 1865, breaks it exactly that way — ku, to stand, and paa, fast — and gives two senses side by side: to stand fast as a material object, and to stand fast morally, “as a person intent upon his purpose.” A post in the ground and a person who will not be talked out of something get described the same way.
That is the whole shape of the word. Kūpaʻa is not enthusiasm and it is not stubbornness. It is what is still there after the enthusiasm wears off — the thing that holds when holding stops being easy.
How to use it
Kūpaʻa is usually said about something — you are steadfast behind a person, a promise, a place. It also takes the causative hoʻo-, which turns standing firm into making firm.
Kūpaʻa ka manaʻo
Faithful in thought; settled in the mind. Given as an example sentence in Pukui-Elbert. Not “made up your mind” in the quick sense — the thought itself has come to rest and stayed there.
Kūpaʻa kākou ma hope o ke aliʻi
We are loyal to the chief. Also straight from Pukui-Elbert. Note the ma hope o — literally standing firm behind someone. Loyalty in Hawaiian is positional.
hoʻokūpaʻa
The causative form, listed in Pukui-Elbert: to remain loyal or firm, to persist — and also to make fast, strengthen, fortify, establish. Andrews glosses the same form as to confirm, to establish.
ʻōlelo kūpaʻa
An ordinance, a covenant, a statute. Recorded by Andrews (1836, 1865) and again by Parker (1922). A steadfast word — language that has been fixed in place so it can be relied on later.
Why this word matters
In 1893, after the overthrow, Ellen Kekoaohiwaikalani Wright Prendergast wrote the mele that is still sung at almost every gathering where Hawaiians are thinking about their own history. It is called Kaulana Nā Pua, and near its close comes the line kūpaʻa ma hope o ka ʻāina — steadfast behind the land.
Kūpaʻa ma hope o ka ʻāina.
The song was written for the royal household guard, who had been told they could keep their jobs if they signed an oath to the new government. They refused. The mele is sometimes called Mele ʻAi Pōhaku — the stone-eating song — because of the line about being satisfied with the stones of the land rather than the money of a government they did not recognize. That is the register kūpaʻa lives in. It is not a soft word.
You can also find it on a street sign. There is a Kūpaʻa Gulch in the Wailuku quadrangle of West Maui and a Kūpaʻa Drive in Pālolo, Honolulu, and the Pukui-Elbert place-name volume gives the meaning of both in two words: steadfast. The same word that carries a mele of refusal also just tells you where to turn.
That range is the point. Kūpaʻa is available for large things and small ones. Standing behind a kingdom, standing behind a friend, showing up for the same job for thirty years, keeping a promise nobody is checking on. Andrews put a post in the ground and a person holding to a purpose in the same entry, and that was not carelessness — it is the same idea, measured two ways.
It is worth saying what kūpaʻa is not. It is not being right. It is not refusing to change your mind. The word describes what holds, not what is true. Whether a thing deserves your standing firm behind it is a separate question, and the language leaves it to you.
Sources
The definitions of kūpaʻa — steadfast, firm, constant, immovable; loyal, faithful; determined; loyalty, allegiance, firmness — together with the example sentences kūpaʻa ka manaʻo and kūpaʻa kākou mahope o ke aliʻi and the causative hoʻokūpaʻa, are from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert, 1986), consulted via Ulukau and Wehewehe Wikiwiki. The breakdown of kū (to stand) plus paʻa (fast), the moral sense “as a person intent upon his purpose,” and ʻōlelo kūpaʻa as ordinance, covenant or statute are from Andrews (1836 and 1865) and Parker (1922). The place names Kūpaʻa Gulch, West Maui, and Kūpaʻa Drive, Pālolo, with the literal gloss steadfast, are from Place Names of Hawaiʻi (Pukui, Elbert & Mookini, 1974). The line kūpaʻa ma hope o ka ʻāina is from Kaulana Nā Pua (also known as Mele ʻAi Pōhaku), written by Ellen Kekoaohiwaikalani Wright Prendergast in 1893.