Word of the Day · Archive
The Hawaiian word for October 18, 2026
Archive · October 18, 2026
ʻOIAʻIʻO
say it: oh-ee-ah-EE-oh
Truth, fact, faithfulness — and the sincere closing of a letter: ʻO au nō me ka ʻoiaʻiʻo, yours truly.
What it means
ʻOiaʻiʻo means truth, fact, or faithfulness. As an adverb it carries the sense of truly, firmly, certainly, sincerely. The Māmaka Kaiao, the modern lexicon, also gives it as reality.
Look closely and you can see the shape of the word: the dictionary’s older sources (Parker, 1922) split it into oia, truth, and ʻiʻo, real. Truth, and then real truth.
Say it slowly, every vowel sounded and each ʻokina a small catch in the breath: oh-ee-ah-EE-oh, with the stress near the end.
How to use it
Every phrase below is documented in the Pukui-Elbert dictionary entries on Wehewehe Wikiwiki.
ʻO au nō me ka ʻoiaʻiʻo
“I am, sincerely; yours truly.” The traditional closing of a letter.
Nā mea ʻoiaʻiʻo
“Facts, true items.”
ʻOiaʻiʻo kā hoʻi
“Is that so?” An exclamation of surprise, or even anger, as the dictionary records it.
Hōʻoiaʻiʻo
The causative form: to verify, certify, check, make sure, prove, or to acknowledge.
Why this word matters
Yesterday the word was pilikia, trouble. Today, a quieter Sunday (Lāpule), we take up its steadier companion: the thing we reach for when trouble clears and we need to know what is real.
Truth in Hawaiian is not only what is said. It is what is real, and what holds.
Notice how many meanings share one word: truth, fact, faithfulness, sincerity. In ʻoiaʻiʻo, being truthful and being faithful are not far apart. A true word is one you can stand on.
That is why the letter closing, me ka ʻoiaʻiʻo, is more than a formality. To sign “with truth” is to say that you mean what you wrote and that you stand behind it.
And the causative hōʻoiaʻiʻo turns the idea into action: to verify, to make sure, to prove. Truth is something we also do. Today, make something sure for someone.
Sources
ʻOiaʻiʻo — truth, fact, faithfulness; truly, firmly, certainly, sincerely — with ʻO au nō me ka ʻoiaʻiʻo, nā mea ʻoiaʻiʻo, ʻOiaʻiʻo kā hoʻi, and hōʻoiaʻiʻo (to verify, certify, prove), are from the Pukui-Elbert dictionary (1986) entries on Wehewehe Wikiwiki (wehe.hilo.hawaii.edu). The sense of reality is from Māmaka Kaiao; the oia + ʻiʻo analysis is from Parker (1922) on the same site. Lāpule, Sunday, is standard Hawaiian usage.