Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for August 2, 2026
Archive · August 2, 2026
LAULIMA
say it: lau-LEE-mah
Cooperation, joint action; a group of people working together — and, in the dictionary’s own list, a community food patch. Literally: many hands.
What it means
Pukui–Elbert gives laulima as “cooperation, joint action; group of people working together; community food patch; to work together, cooperate.” Literally, the dictionary says: many hands.
It is built from two ordinary pieces. Lau is much, many, numerous. Lima is hand. Put them together and you have the whole idea already — no metaphor required, no explanation needed. The word says what it is.
Notice what else sits in that entry, though. Alongside the abstract noun and the verb, the dictionary files a place: a community food patch. Not a feeling about working together. An actual garden that more than one family eats from and more than one family weeds.
How to use it
These are attested in the dictionaries and in the collections:
laulima — cooperation, joint action; a group of people working together. It also works as a verb: to work together, to cooperate. One headword, both the thing and the doing of it.
laulima (the other sense) — a community food patch. Same word, same entry, but now a piece of ground. Pukui–Elbert does not split the value off from the dirt it gets done in.
ʻahaʻaina laulima — a feast held after a joint undertaking is finished, especially a harvest. ʻAhaʻaina is a feast or banquet, literally a meal gathering. The work ends at a table.
ʻAʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia — “No task is too big when done together by all.” Number 142 in Mary Kawena Pukui’s ʻŌlelo Noʻeau. Not a laulima compound, but the saying that carries the idea.
Why this word matters
Yesterday’s word was pōhaku — stone. Anyone who has tried to move one alone already understands why today’s word exists. There is a size of rock past which the answer is not a better grip. It is another person.
What makes laulima worth sitting with is that the dictionary keeps it concrete. English tends to file cooperation under attitude — something you have, something you bring. Hawaiian files it under hands, and then, in the same entry, under a garden. You cannot be in a state of laulima by yourself in a chair.
“Many hands” is not encouragement. It is the literal breakdown of the word.
That fits how the land was worked. The ahupuaʻa — this page’s word on July 19 — ran from the uplands to the sea, and the water that fed the loʻi had to be kept moving by whoever ate from it. A ditch is not a solo project. Neither is a harvest, which is why there is a specific word for the meal afterward.
It is Sunday. Somewhere on this island someone is clearing a beach, restacking a wall, or filling a truck for a family that needed it. Nobody is calling it laulima while they do it. That is generally the sign that it is.
Sources
Definitions verified against the Pukui–Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary (1986) via wehewehe.org — laulima: “cooperation, joint action; group of people working together; community food patch; to work together, cooperate,” literally many hands, from lau (much, many, numerous) and lima (hand); ʻahaʻaina laulima: a feast after the completion of a joint project, especially a harvest; ʻahaʻaina: “feast, dinner party, banquet,” literally meal gathering. Cross-checked against the University of Hawaiʻi System’s Hawaiian Word of the Week entry for laulima (September 19, 2023). The saying ʻAʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia is number 142 in Mary Kawena Pukui’s ʻŌlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings (Bishop Museum Press).