Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for June 11, 2026
Archive · June 11, 2026
LEI
say it: LAY
Garland · wreath · a beloved one — flowers, leaves, or shells strung with care and given as a symbol of affection
What it means
In the Pukui-Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary, lei is a garland or wreath — a necklace of flowers, leaves, shells, ivory, or feathers, given as a symbol of affection. The same word covers the act of wearing one, and it can even mean a crown. A lei is affection made visible: something gathered, strung by hand, and placed on another person.
The figurative meaning is the one that stays with you. Lei also names a beloved child, a sweetheart, a husband or wife — because a cherished child was carried on the shoulders, legs draped down both sides of the bearer like a lei. To call someone your lei is to say you carry them close, and gladly.
There is a second, separate sense too: as a verb, lei can mean to leap, fling, or spring forward — and its derived form hoʻolei means both to toss or cast and to place a lei on someone, to crown them. One small word, holding tenderness and motion at once.
How to use it
A few documented ways it shows up:
Why this word matters
Today is King Kamehameha Day — proclaimed in 1871 by Kamehameha V to honor the mōʻī who united the islands. And the image the day is known for, across Hawaiʻi and beyond, is lei: strand after strand of flowers draped over the outstretched arms of the Kamehameha statues until the bronze nearly disappears beneath them. The highest honor the islands give is not a speech or a salute. It is flowers, strung by hand.
That is what makes lei bigger than a souvenir. Every lei is hours of someone’s time — gathering, stringing, braiding — given away whole. It cannot be rushed and it does not last, which is exactly the point: it spends its beauty on the person wearing it.
E lei kau, e lei hoʻoilo i ke aloha — love is worn like a lei through summer and through winter.
That saying, recorded by Mary Kawena Pukui, carries the deeper meaning: love is not seasonal. A lei wilts; the affection it stands for is worn year-round. The same logic gives the word its tenderest sense — a beloved child carried on the shoulders, draped like a lei, is themselves called a lei.
For a brand built on the idea that our roots connect us, lei may be the most literal word we’ve featured: separate blossoms, strung onto one cord, becoming a single thing worn over the heart. Today of all days — give one, wear one, or just learn the word for it.
Sources
Definition of lei (“lei, garland, wreath; necklace of flowers, leaves, shells, ivory, feathers… given as a symbol of affection; figuratively, a beloved child, wife, husband, sweetheart”) and the compound forms lei poʻo, lei hulu, kui lei, haku lei, and hoʻolei verified against the Pukui-Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary (1986) via wehewehe.org. Saying “E lei kau, e lei hoʻoilo i ke aloha” from Mary Kawena Pukui, ʻŌlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings.