Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for October 16, 2026
Archive · October 16, 2026
KAHIKO
say it: kah-HEE-koh
Old, ancient, of long ago — and the old people, the ancestors, whose ways still shape ours.
What it means
Kahiko means old, ancient, antique, primitive, long ago. As a verb it means to become old, or to fade, the way a flower or leaf fades. It can also stand for an old person.
The dictionary also records a related phrase, ua kahiko e, “to become old prematurely.” And in some genealogies, Kahiko with a capital is the name of the first man in Hawaiʻi, the father of Wākea, as Parker notes.
Say it in three beats with the stress on the middle: kah-HEE-koh. Be careful with its look-alike kāhiko, with a kahakō on the first vowel. That one means finery, ornaments, to dress up. Same letters, different word.
How to use it
Every phrase below is documented in the dictionaries on Wehewehe Wikiwiki.
Poe kahiko
“The ancients, the old people.” Poe is a group or company, so this is the people of old as a whole.
Wā kahiko
“Old time.” The days of long ago, the time before.
Ua kahiko e
“To become old prematurely.” The ua marks the change as already having happened.
Why this word matters
Two days ago the word was ʻōpio, the young. Today we turn to the other end of the line: kahiko, the old, the ancient, the ones who came before.
To call something kahiko is not to call it finished. It is to say it has roots.
The dictionary’s entry is plain: old, ancient, long ago. But look at the phrases around it. Poe kahiko and wā kahiko name the people and the time that everything else grew from.
The word can also mean fading, like a flower or a leaf. Age in the language carries both: the slow letting go, and the long memory.
Today is Pōʻalima, Friday. Ask an older person in your life for a story from the old days, or take a moment with something that has been kept for generations. What is kahiko is still here because someone cared for it.
Sources
Kahiko — old, ancient, antique, primitive, long ago; to become or be old, to fade; an old person — with poe kahiko, wā kahiko, ua kahiko e, and the distinct word kāhiko (finery, ornaments, to dress up) are from the dictionary entries on Wehewehe Wikiwiki (wehe.hilo.hawaii.edu), which draws on Pukui-Elbert, Andrews (1865) and Parker (1922). The note on Kahiko as the name of the first man, father of Wākea, is from the same entry. Pōʻalima, Friday, is standard Hawaiian usage.