Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for October 21, 2026
Archive · October 21, 2026
MĀLAMALAMA
say it: mah-lah-mah-LAH-mah
Light, clarity, and enlightenment — shining, radiant, clear: Ka mālamalama o ka ʻākau, the northern lights.
What it means
Mālamalama is light, and more than the physical kind. The Pukui-Elbert entry gives the light of knowledge, clarity of thinking or explanation, enlightenment, and the sense of something shining, radiant, or clear. It is a reduplication of malama, light.
Andrews’ 1865 dictionary traces the word to ma and lama, a torch, and describes it as the light of the sun, a lamp, or a fire. Its causative form, hoʻomālamalama, means to brighten, illuminate, enlighten, or inform.
Say it plainly, with the stress on the fourth syllable: mah-lah-mah-LAH-mah.
How to use it
Every phrase below is documented in the Pukui-Elbert dictionary entry for mālamalama on Wehewehe Wikiwiki.
Ka mālamalama o ka ʻākau
“The light of the north” — the northern lights.
Hoʻomālamalama
“To cause light” — to brighten, illuminate, enlighten, or inform.
Mālamalama
“Shining, radiant, clear” — light, and the clarity of understanding.
Why this word matters
Yesterday the word was kapa, the cloth and the name. Today, a Wednesday (Pōʻakolu), we move from what covers us to what lights the way: mālamalama.
One word for the light you can see and the light of understanding.
Hawaiian does not draw a hard line between the two. The same word that names a lamp or the sun’s light also names the light of knowledge and clearness of thought. To understand something is to see it in the light, and to teach is to hoʻomālamalama, to cause light.
The word lives on the land, too. Mālamalama is the name of a land section in Kailua, Oʻahu, which Place Names of Hawaiʻi glosses as “enlightened.” Names like this remind us that places carry the values of the people who named them.
At Digital Piko, we think of a word like this as an invitation. Today, notice who or what brings you clarity, and where you might be the light for someone else.
Sources
Mālamalama — light, the light of knowledge, clarity of thinking or explanation, enlightenment, shining, radiant, clear; ka mālamalama o ka ʻākau, the northern lights; and hoʻomālamalama, to brighten, illuminate, enlighten, or inform — are from the Pukui-Elbert dictionary (1986) entry on Wehewehe Wikiwiki (wehe.hilo.hawaii.edu). The derivation from ma and lama (torch) is from Andrews’ 1865 dictionary, and the land section in Kailua, Oʻahu, from Place Names of Hawaiʻi (1974), both on the same site. Pōʻakolu, Wednesday, is standard Hawaiian usage.