Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for July 11, 2026
Archive · July 11, 2026
HUI
say it: HOO-ee
To join, to meet — and the group that forms when people do.
What it means
In the Pukui-Elbert dictionary, hui is both an action and the thing the action creates. As a verb it means to join, unite, combine, mix — to meet, intermingle, congregate. As a noun it is the gathering itself: a club, association, society, partnership, union, team.
One small word covers the whole arc — the coming together and what the coming together builds. Two people hui and you have a partnership. A neighborhood hui and you have a canoe club, a fishing hui, a group that shares the work and the catch.
You already know this word even if you don’t think you do. Every time someone in Hawaiʻi waves goodbye with “a hui hou,” this is the hui they mean — the meeting still to come.
How to use it
All of these are documented in the Pukui-Elbert dictionary:
a hui hou
“Until we meet again” — the islands’ everyday farewell. Not goodbye; a promise that the paths will cross once more.
Why this word matters
A few days ago the word was pilina — the bond between people. Hui is how that bond gets made: someone joins, someone meets, and something new exists that wasn’t there before.
In Hawaiʻi the hui has long been how big things got done without big money. Families formed land hui to buy and hold ʻāina together. Fishing hui shared nets, labor, and catch. Today the same shape lives on in canoe clubs, community gardens, and the group chat organizing this weekend’s beach cleanup. The hui is the island’s oldest technology for turning neighbors into a team.
A hui hou is not goodbye. It is a meeting, promised in advance.
That is why the farewell matters. English says goodbye and closes the door. Hawaiian says a hui hou and leaves it open — the parting is just the space between two meetings.
So today, use the word both ways. Join something. And when you leave, don’t say goodbye — say a hui hou, and mean the promise inside it.
Sources
Definitions verified in the Pukui-Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary (1986) via wehewehe.org — entry for hui (to join, unite, combine, mix; to meet, intermingle; club, association, society, partnership, union, team, joint ownership). The farewell a hui hou (“until we meet again”) cross-checked with the University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu’s E Kamakani Hou Hawaiian saying of the week.