Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for September 12, 2026
Archive · September 12, 2026
KĀKOʻO
say it: kah-KOH-oh
To uphold, support, favor, assist, prop up; to bind, as with a sash or belt — and, as a noun, support, aid, recommendation.
What it means
Kākoʻo is given by Pukui and Elbert as: to uphold, support, favor, assist, prop up; to bind, as with a sash or belt — and, as a noun, support, aid, recommendation, girdle. Verb and noun in one word again, the way ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi so often does it: the act of holding something up and the thing that holds it up do not need separate names.
The word is built on koʻo, and the dictionary entry for koʻo is where kākoʻo stops being abstract. A koʻo is a brace, a support, a wand, a prop — and, Pukui and Elbert add, a helper. It is the small stalk that each feather on a large kāhili is tied to, which is then attached to the main pole. It is the pole you push a canoe with. It is the sprit that holds a canoe sail open.
So kākoʻo does not mean cheering. It means being the stick. Every sense in that entry is a physical object doing structural work underneath something more visible than itself — and in the same breath, a person.
How to use it
Kākoʻo takes an object — you kākoʻo a person, a project, a decision. It is also comfortable as a noun, and it has a whole family of related forms sitting underneath it.
…it is our kuleana to kākoʻo our haumāna
Offered by F. Kahale Saito, Native Hawaiian Counselor at Honolulu Community College, for UH News’ ʻŌlelo of the Week. A good model of how the word is actually used today — dropped straight into an English sentence, because no English verb quite covers it. “Support” is too passive; “help” is too occasional.
mea kākoʻo
A supporter; a sponsor. From Māmaka Kaiao, the modern Hawaiian vocabulary. Literally the thing-or-person-that-props. Note that the language did not need a new root for this — it reached for the old one about braces and poles.
koʻo
The root, standing alone: brace, support, wand, prop, helper. Pukui-Elbert also gives it as “to uphold,” citing Isaiah 63:5 — the word was strong enough that the 19th-century Bible translators reached for it when they needed something that meant to sustain.
hoʻokoʻo
The causative. Pukui-Elbert’s example is unimprovable: to prop with a pole, as a heavily laden banana plant, or a house to keep it from falling down. The banana plant is not failing. It is producing. That is exactly when it needs a prop.
Why this word matters
Picture a kāhili — the tall feather standard carried before aliʻi. What you see is the crown of feathers. What holds it together is invisible from three feet away: every single feather is lashed to its own small stalk, and every stalk is lashed to the main pole. Pukui and Elbert name that small stalk. It is a koʻo.
Every feather on a kāhili is tied to a koʻo.
That is the whole picture inside this word. Kākoʻo is not the feather and it is not the pole. It is the piece in between that nobody is looking at, and without which the thing that everybody is looking at comes apart in the wind.
You can watch the word doing that work in Hawaiʻi right now. The Kākoʻo Maui Resource Center runs out of Kahului and Lahaina. Kākoʻo Mai is Hawaiian Council’s disaster relief hub — needs assessments, housing stability, transportation, cash assistance — the unglamorous structural things that get done after the cameras leave. Nobody named those a feather. They named them the stalk.
And then there is the part of the entry that stops you. Koʻo has a third meaning in Pukui-Elbert, well down the list: force, strength; strong, rough. It is rarely used, they note, except after kai. Kai koʻo — a rough, strong sea.
The same root names the brace and the roughness that makes a brace necessary. Kauaʻi and Niʻihau took a hurricane’s winds this week; the Kona Low flooding of earlier this year is still being cleaned up on Oʻahu. There is no version of island life where the sea stays flat. The language seems to have decided a long time ago that the honest thing to do was give the storm and the support the same name, and let you work out which one you are being asked to be today.
Sources
The definitions of kākoʻo — to uphold, support, favor, assist, prop up; to bind, as with a sash or belt; support, aid, recommendation, girdle — and the full entry for the root koʻo (brace, support, wand, prop, helper; the small stalks to which feathers on large kāhili are tied and which are attached to the main pole; the pole used in pushing a canoe; the sprit of a canoe’s sail; to uphold, citing Isaiah 63:5; the causative hoʻokoʻo, to prop with a pole, as a heavily laden banana plant or a house to keep it from falling down; and kai koʻo, rough, strong sea) are from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert, 1986), consulted via Ulukau and Wehewehe Wikiwiki. Mea kākoʻo, supporter or sponsor, is from Māmaka Kaiao: A Modern Hawaiian Vocabulary (Kōmike Huaʻōlelo, 2003). The classroom sentence is from F. Kahale Saito, Native Hawaiian Counselor at Hulili Ke Kukui Hawaiian Center, Honolulu Community College, published in UH News’ ʻŌlelo of the Week series, June 28, 2022. Kākoʻo Mai and the Kākoʻo Maui Resource Center are programs of Hawaiian Council (hawaiiancouncil.org).