Hawaiian Word of the Day
One word a day. Speak a little more Hawaiʻi.
Every morning, a new Hawaiian word — what it means, where it comes from, how to say it, and why it matters. For locals, kamaʻāina, kanaka maoli, diaspora, and visitors who want to learn with respect.
Today · July 26, 2026
PULE
say it: POO-leh
Prayer, blessing, church service — and the week itself: in Hawaiian, the very word for “week” is the word for prayer.
What it means
In the Pukui–Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary, pule is prayer in its widest sense: prayer, magic spell, incantation, blessing, grace, church service, church — and as a verb, to pray, worship, say grace, ask a blessing. It is the word for the murmured grace before a meal and for the full Sunday service, for the blessing over a new hale and for the old incantations that came long before any steeple stood in the islands.
Then comes the second meaning, and it is a beautiful one: pule also means week. Kēlā pule, kēia pule — weekly, week after week. Kēia pule aʻe — next week. When the seven-day calendar took hold in Hawaiʻi, the week itself took its name from the day set aside to pray: Lāpule, “prayer day” — Sunday.
One small word, holding both the sacred and the ordinary calendar of daily life. You cannot talk about your schedule in Hawaiian without, in a quiet way, talking about prayer.
How to use it
Pule works as noun and verb, and it anchors some of the most common words in the language. Each of these is attested:
Lāpule — lā + pule: “prayer day” — Sunday. Today, in fact.
hale pule — “prayer house” — a church. Hale (house) was a word of the day here not long ago; now you can build on it.
pule ʻohana — family prayer. Pukui–Elbert notes that ʻohana by itself can even mean “to gather for family prayers” — short for pule ʻohana. That is how central the practice was to family life.
kēia pule aʻe — “next week,” straight from the dictionary entry. And kēlā pule, kēia pule — that week, this week: weekly, week in and week out.
Why this word matters
Today is Lāpule — Sunday, the day the word itself lives in. Whether or not a church is part of your Sunday, the shape of the word is worth sitting with: in Hawaiian, the week is not numbered, it is named — and it is named for the pause, not the work.
In Hawaiian, every week carries the name of the day you stop to pray.
The dictionary’s own definition tells you pule is older than the churches. Incantation, spell, blessing — these senses reach back to a Hawaiʻi where words themselves were understood to carry power, where important work began by speaking to something larger than yourself. The missionary era gave the word new buildings to live in; it did not invent the word.
And there is pule ʻohana — family prayer, so woven into island life that “ʻohana” alone could mean the act of gathering for it. A family drawing together at day’s end, naming what they were grateful for, asking help with what was heavy. Whatever your practice, that rhythm — gather, give thanks, begin again — is one the islands have kept for a very long time.
So this week — kēia pule — maybe borrow the Hawaiian shape of time. Let the week be named for its pause. E pule kākou, or simply: rest, gather your people, and begin again on Monday.
Sources
Wehewehe Wikiwiki / Wehewehe.org — Pukui & Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary (1986)
Pule: 1. prayer, magic spell, incantation, blessing, grace, church service, church; to pray, worship, say grace, ask a blessing. 2. week: kēlā pule, kēia pule, weekly; kēia pule aʻe, next week.
The compounds Lāpule (“prayer day,” Sunday) and hale pule (“prayer house,” church) are recorded in Pukui & Elbert; the entry for ʻohana records “to gather for family prayers, short for pule ʻohana.”