Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for September 25, 2026
Archive · September 25, 2026
MAKAHIKI
say it: mah-kah-HEE-kee
Year, age — and the ancient autumn festival of games and ceremony, when war was kapu.
What it means
Makahiki is the Hawaiian word for a year. Pukui and Elbert give it as “year, age; annual, yearly” — so the same word counts the calendar, measures how old you are, and turns anything into a once-a-year event. Māmaka Kaiao keeps it as the everyday modern word for year, and it is sometimes abbreviated M.H.
Pukui-Elbert’s second sense is the one most people have heard of: the Makahiki, an “ancient festival beginning about the middle of October and lasting about four months, with sports and religious festivities and taboo on war.” Kent (1986) describes it as an annual festival connected with Lono, and Parker (1922) even lists “athletic sports” as a meaning of the word, from the old practice of holding games at the Makahiki.
The older dictionaries show where the word starts. Andrews (1865) defines makahiki first as “the name of the first day of the year,” then the commencement of the year, and then the span of a year — “a finishing of the twelve-month.” The festival and the year share a name because the festival is where the year began.
How to use it
Makahiki is one of the most useful words you can learn — every one of these is documented in the dictionary record.
ʻEhia ou makahiki?
“How old are you?” (Pukui-Elbert). Literally, “how many are your years?” — ʻehia asks how many.
Nui nā makahiki
“Many years; old, aged” (Pukui-Elbert). A gentle way to speak of long life — nui is many, nā marks the plural.
Hōʻike makahiki
“Annual report” (Pukui-Elbert). Put makahiki after a noun and it becomes yearly. Pukui-Elbert also gives i ka makahiki, “in the year; yearly.”
Hauʻoli Makahiki Hou
“Happy New Year” — hauʻoli, happy; hou, new. Pukui-Elbert notes this common greeting is a translation from English, alongside hauʻoli lā hānau, happy birthday.
Why this word matters
Yesterday’s word was hoʻoilo, the rainy season. Today we follow it one step further: the Makahiki season fell in that wet half of the year, opening, as Pukui and Elbert put it, “about the middle of October.” Autumn in the islands has always been the edge of a new year.
A season when war was set down, and the year began again with games.
That is the part of makahiki worth sitting with. For about four months, the dictionary tells us, there were sports and religious festivities, and fighting was forbidden. The new year did not arrive at midnight with a countdown — it arrived as a long, deliberate stretch of peace.
Pukui and Elbert add one more detail: the old festival is “now replaced by Aloha Week,” the autumn celebration that lives on today as Aloha Festivals. The idea of setting aside a season to gather, compete, dance, and celebrate who we are never really left.
Use it small. Ask a keiki ʻehia ou makahiki? on their birthday. Say hauʻoli makahiki hou on January 1. And when the Makahiki season comes around this fall, you will know the word already holds the whole year inside it.
Sources
Makahiki — nvs., year, age; annual, yearly (with the examples ʻehia ou makahiki?, hōʻike makahiki, i ka makahiki, and nui nā makahiki), and n., the ancient festival beginning about the middle of October, lasting about four months, with sports, religious festivities, and taboo on war, now replaced by Aloha Week — is from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert, 1986). Hauʻoli Makahiki Hou and the note that it is a translation from English are from the Pukui-Elbert entry for hauʻoli. The modern noun (year) is from Māmaka Kaiao. “The name of the first day of the year” and “a finishing of the twelve-month” are Andrews (1865), carried forward in Parker (1922), which also lists “athletic sports”; the Lono connection is Kent (1986). Pōʻalima, Friday, is Pukui-Elbert (1986). All entries consulted via Wehewehe Wikiwiki (wehe.hilo.hawaii.edu) and wehewehe.org.