Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for June 1, 2026
Archive · June 1, 2026
KUPUNA
say it: koo-POO-nah
Grandparent · Elder · Ancestor — the source we grow from
What it means
In ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, kupuna is a grandparent — and Pukui & Elbert let the word reach much further than that. It is “grandparent, ancestor, relative or close friend of the grandparent’s generation, grandaunt, granduncle.” The same word that names the grandmother across the table names the ancestor you never met. The generations don’t get separate words. They share this one.
The dictionary follows the line all the way back: a kupuna can be “a grandparent… a father of two or more generations back,” and from there, a forefather or ancestor indefinitely. There is no point where “family I knew” ends and “ancestors I’m descended from” begins. In this language, they are the same people, still part of the household.
When you mean more than one, the word takes a kahakō — kūpuna, with that first vowel held long. That is the form you hear in phrases like “our kūpuna,” the elders and ancestors together, the whole line standing behind you.
One note on respect: you do not call your own grandmother “kupuna” to her face the way you’d use a name. It is the word you use about the generation — a word that carries reverence built right into it.
How to use it
The base word stays the same; what changes around it tells you who, and how many. A few forms you will hear often:
Why this word matters
Our brand tagline is our roots connect us. There is no word that says that more directly than kupuna. An elder, an ancestor, the source — all one word, because in this way of seeing the world, they are one thing.
A kupuna is not just someone old. A kupuna is where you come from — the living root that the rest of the family grows out of.
Listen to the front of the word. Kupu is its own entry in Pukui & Elbert: to sprout, to grow, to germinate, to increase — a sprout, an offspring, one rising up. The kupuna is the part of that growing thing that came first and holds the rest in place. When Hawaiian educators teach this word, many point to the reading kupu (to grow) joined with puna (a spring, a source) — the source from which the family grows. Pukui & Elbert don’t spell that etymology out as fact, but the image fits the language exactly: the elder as the spring the line flows from.
That is why the word stretches indefinitely backward. You honor the grandmother you knew with the same word you use for the ancestor whose name is lost — because both are the source, and the source doesn’t expire when a person passes. The kūpuna are still standing behind the family, still part of the household, still consulted in the way you carry yourself.
So when you greet a kupuna, or speak of your kūpuna, you are naming the roots in our tagline out loud. The line from the ones who came before, down through your parents, down to you, and onward to the keiki — it is one continuous thing. And the old word for the ones at the head of that line is kupuna.
Sources
Definition of kupuna (“grandparent, ancestor, relative or close friend of the grandparent’s generation, grandaunt, granduncle… a father of two or more generations back, forefather”), the plural kūpuna, the gendered forms kupuna kāne and kupuna wahine, the related verb hoʻokupuna, and the root kupu (“sprout, growth, offspring; to sprout, grow, germinate, increase”) all verified against Mary Kawena Pukui & Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary (Revised & Enlarged Edition, University of Hawaiʻi Press) via wehewehe.org. The reading of kupuna as kupu (to grow) + puna (a spring or source) is a cultural interpretation widely taught by Hawaiian-language educators; it is offered here as interpretation, not as a Pukui & Elbert etymology.