Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for October 8, 2026
Archive · October 8, 2026
HĀʻAWI
say it: HAH-ah-vee
To give, grant, hand over, offer — the act that sets a gift in motion.
What it means
Hāʻawi means to give. Pukui and Elbert define it as “to give, grant, allot, hand, present; to bid, as at auction; to offer; to deal, as cards; a deal.” It works as a verb and, in the card-table sense, as a noun — a deal.
Andrews (1865) adds shades that the modern definition folds together: “to give; to grant to another,” but also “to help; to assist,” “to offer or propose for a thing,” and “to commend to one’s care.” Parker (1922) keeps “to give; to grant; to make over to another” and “to proffer; to make an offer; to tender.”
Where yesterday’s makana is mostly the gift itself, hāʻawi is the motion — the hand going out. Hawaiʻi’s courts have read it the same way for well over a century: the legal glossary on Wehewehe records it as “give,” “grant or award,” “bestow,” and “appoint” in 1880s and 1890s case law.
How to use it
Every phrase below is documented in the dictionary record on Wehewehe Wikiwiki.
Hāʻawi (cards & auctions)
“To bid, as at auction; to deal, as cards; a deal” (Pukui-Elbert). The same word that hands over a gift also hands out the cards and calls out a bid.
Haawi lilo ole
“To lend” (Andrews, 1865, citing Deuteronomy 24:10) — literally, to give without it being lost. A loan is a giving that expects to come home.
Haʻawina
“Lesson” and “appropriation” in the Pukui-Elbert English–Hawaiian entries, with haʻawina hoʻi hope for a review lesson. Note the spelling: no kahakō on the first a. A lesson is something handed to you.
Hāʻawi (volleyball)
In modern Hawaiian, Māmaka Kaiao uses hāʻawi for “to set (the ball)” in volleyball — tagged as a Niʻihau usage. The setter gives the hitter the ball.
Why this word matters
Yesterday was makana, the gift. Today is hāʻawi, the giving. One is a thing; the other is a choice someone makes with their hands. A makana sitting on a shelf is just an object until somebody hāʻawi it.
A gift is a noun. Giving is a verb.
Andrews’ older senses are worth sitting with: to give is also “to help; to assist,” and “to commend to one’s care.” In that light, hāʻawi is not only about objects. You can give your time, your help, your attention — or hand someone over to another person’s care and trust them with it.
The card-table and volleyball senses say something too. You deal so the game can happen. You set the ball so someone else can score. A lot of good giving looks like that: putting the next person in a position to do well.
Today is Pōʻahā, Thursday. Hāʻawi something today — help, a lesson you learned, the setup for somebody else’s win.
Sources
Hāʻawi — “to give, grant, allot, hand, present; to bid, as at auction; to offer; to deal, as cards; a deal” — is from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert, 1986). “To give; to grant to another,” “to help; to assist,” “to offer or propose for a thing,” “to commend to one’s care,” and haawi lilo ole, “to lend,” are from Andrews (1865); “to proffer; to make an offer; to tender” is from Parker (1922). The legal senses (“give,” “grant or award,” “bestow,” “appoint”) are from the Hawaiian legal glossary on Wehewehe, citing Hawaiʻi Reports cases of 1885–1901. Haʻawina (“lesson,” “appropriation”) and haʻawina hoʻi hope are from the English–Hawaiian entries for “lesson” and “grant.” The volleyball sense is from Māmaka Kaiao. Cross-checked against the University of Hawaiʻi “Hawaiian Word of the Week” for hāʻawi (2023). Pōʻahā, Thursday, is standard Hawaiian usage. All dictionary entries consulted via Wehewehe Wikiwiki (wehe.hilo.hawaii.edu) and wehewehe.org.