Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for July 31, 2026
Archive · July 31, 2026
EA
say it: EH-ah
Life, breath, air, spirit — and also sovereignty, rule, independence. Today, July 31, is Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, the day named for it.
What it means
Two letters, and one of the largest words in the language. The Pukui–Elbert dictionary carries several entries under ea. One reads: “life, air, breath, respiration, vapor, gas; fumes, as of tobacco; breeze, spirit.” Another reads simply: “sovereignty, rule, independence.” A third is a verb — “to rise, go up, raise, become erect,” as in kai ea, a rising sea.
The dictionary lists those as separate entries, and a careful student should say so plainly rather than invent an etymology. But the sounds are the same, and the range they cover is hard to miss: the breath that fills a body, the standing-up of something that was down, and the self-rule of a nation. Whatever else ea is, it is the word Hawaiian reaches for when something rises and lives on its own terms.
Today is the day the word owns. July 31 is Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea — the day ea was given back.
How to use it
These phrases are attested in the dictionaries and in the historical record:
Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono — “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” Spoken by Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III, at Kawaiahaʻo Church on July 31, 1843. It became the motto of the Kingdom, and in 1959 the motto of the State.
Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea — Restoration Day. The dictionary’s own example under ea, sovereignty. Hoʻihoʻi is to return or restore something to where it belongs.
Hoʻihoʻi i ke ea o Hawaiʻi — restore the sovereignty of Hawaiʻi. A second Pukui–Elbert example under the same entry.
kai ea — a rising sea. From the verb sense: the water standing up. Kai was this page’s word on May 30.
Why this word matters
On February 10, 1843, Lord George Paulet sailed the British frigate Carysfort into Honolulu harbor and, without authorization from his own government, claimed the islands for Britain. The Hawaiian flag came down. For five months the Kingdom was not its own.
On July 31, 1843, Admiral Richard Thomas arrived, repudiated what Paulet had done, and gave the Kingdom back. The Union Jack was lowered, the hae Hawaiʻi rose again, and later that day Kauikeaouli stood on the steps of Kawaiahaʻo Church and said the sentence that Hawaiʻi has repeated ever since: Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono. He declared the day a national holiday — one of the first the Kingdom ever kept. The ground where the flag was raised is Thomas Square still.
Ea is the word for the breath in your chest and the word for a nation standing on its own. Today is the day those two meanings shook hands.
The holiday lapsed under Kamehameha V in 1867. It was carried forward anyway — by families, by communities, by people who kept the date when no government did — and in 2022 the Hawaiʻi State Legislature passed a measure recognizing Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea again on July 31.
That is what makes ea worth learning on this particular morning. It is not only a historical word. It is the ordinary word for breath — the thing you are doing right now without thinking about it, over and over, for as long as you are here. Ua mau: it continues.
Sources
Definitions verified against the Pukui–Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary (1986) via wehewehe.org and Wehewehe Wikiwiki — ea: “life, air, breath, respiration, vapor, gas; fumes, as of tobacco; breeze, spirit”; ea: “sovereignty, rule, independence,” with the dictionary’s own examples Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Restoration Day, and Hoʻihoʻi i ke ea o Hawaiʻi, restore the sovereignty of Hawaiʻi; ea: “to rise, go up, raise, become erect,” with the example kai ea, rising sea. Historical account of the Paulet occupation and the July 31, 1843 restoration drawn from Kamehameha Schools’ Kaʻiwakīloumoku Hawaiian Cultural Center, the Bishop Museum Library & Archives, and the Lyman Museum. The 2022 legislative recognition is reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.