Hawaiian

How to spell hawaiian

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce hawaiian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hawaiian mean?

1. adjectiveOf or relating to Hawaii, its people, language, or culture.
2. nounA native or inhabitant of Hawaii, or the language spoken there.

Hawaiian in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves a hawaiian pizza topped with pineapple and ham.

• noun

  The tour guide was a native hawaiian who knew every legend of the islands.

• adjective

  She wore a bright hawaiian shirt covered in tropical flowers.

• noun

  Many place names on the islands come directly from hawaiian.

Where does hawaiian come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is the English adjective formed from Hawaii, the name of the Pacific island chain and the fiftieth state of the United States. The place name comes from the indigenous Hawaiian language, where the islands are called Hawaii, traditionally traced to a Proto-Polynesian word for a homeland, often linked to the legendary ancestral land Hawaiki. The original spelling in Hawaiian is Hawaii, with an okina (a glottal stop mark) between the two final vowels, which is why English ends up with that surprising double 'i' before the suffix. English simply added the familiar -an ending, the same one seen in 'American' and 'Italian', to mean 'of or relating to' the place. The term came into wide English use in the nineteenth century as contact with the islands grew, and the doubled 'i' that trips up writers is a direct fossil of the native spelling.

How the word is built

• Hawaii (the place name)
• -an (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to')