Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for September 24, 2026
Archive · September 24, 2026
HOʻOILO
say it: hoh-oh-EE-loh
Winter, the rainy season — the wet half of the Hawaiian year, set against kau, summer.
What it means
Hoʻoilo is winter — the rainy season. Pukui and Elbert define it in just those words, and Māmaka Kaiao keeps it as the everyday modern word for winter. Pukui-Elbert also records the variant spelling hoʻīlo.
The older dictionaries explain what it stands against. Andrews (1865) calls hoʻoilo “the name of the rainy or wintry months, in distinction from kau, the summer season,” and notes that the Hawaiian year was reckoned in two seasons, kau and hoʻoilo. He also describes it as the stormy season, when the regular trade winds are interrupted. Parker (1922) and Kent (1986) repeat the same pairing.
There is a quieter layer too. Māmaka Kaiao lists hoʻoilo as a verb meaning “to cause to germinate, sprout,” and Parker gives hoilo as “to cause seeds to sprout before placing in a seed bed.” Winter, in this vocabulary, sits right next to the idea of things beginning to grow. (Pukui-Elbert also lists an unrelated sense: a strong, bitter purgative.)
How to use it
Hoʻoilo turns up in the dictionary record in a saying, a line of poetry, and a plain everyday phrase — all documented.
Ua hala ka hoʻoilo, ua mālie.
“Winter is gone, it is calm” — and, figuratively, the trouble is over (Pukui-Elbert). Hala is to pass; mālie is calm. Weather talk that doubles as comfort.
Moe kau ā hoʻoilo
“Sleep summers and winters” — a poetic expression for death, recorded by Pukui-Elbert under kau. A life measured out in the two seasons, and then rest through all of them.
Ka hale hoʻīlo
“The winter house” (Pukui-Elbert, citing the Hawaiian Bible, Jeremiah 36:22). The variant spelling in a simple noun phrase: add hoʻoilo or hoʻīlo after a noun to make it wintry.
Kau · Hoʻoilo
The pair that makes a year: kau, the warm summer season, and hoʻoilo, the rainy winter one (Andrews; Parker; Kent). Pukui-Elbert’s kau ā kau, “season after season,” carries the same rhythm — figuratively, always and forever.
Why this word matters
Yesterday’s word was kaulike, balance, for the week of the September equinox. Today we lean the other way: past the equinox the days keep shortening, and the islands tilt toward hoʻoilo.
Two seasons, not four — and one of them is named for the rain.
Winter in Hawaiʻi was never about snow on the doorstep. The old definitions describe it by what actually changes here: the rain comes back, and the steady trade winds give way to storms. Learning hoʻoilo means learning to see the year the way people who lived closest to this land saw it — as a wet half and a dry half, kau and hoʻoilo, rather than four borrowed seasons.
The saying ua hala ka hoʻoilo, ua mālie is worth keeping in your pocket. It is an honest line: the hard season is real, and it passes. And the verb sense — to cause to sprout — is a good reminder that the rainy months are also when things begin.
Use it small. When the first real rain of the season rolls in, when the catchment tank finally fills, when someone asks what winter even means in the islands — that is hoʻoilo.
Sources
Hoʻoilo — n., winter, rainy season (with the example ua hala ka hoʻoilo, ua mālie), and the variant hoʻīlo (with ka hale hoʻīlo) — is from the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert, 1986), which also records moe kau ā hoʻoilo and kau ā kau under kau. The two-season year (kau and hoʻoilo) and the stormy-season sense are from Andrews (1865), carried forward in Parker (1922) and Kent (1986); Parker also gives hoilo, to cause seeds to sprout. The modern noun (winter) and the verb “to cause to germinate, sprout” are from Māmaka Kaiao. Pōʻahā, Thursday, is Pukui-Elbert (1986). All entries consulted via Wehewehe Wikiwiki (wehe.hilo.hawaii.edu) and wehewehe.org.