Wehewehe Wikiwiki Hawaiian language dictionaries

1. n., The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas 🌐), a perennial, wide-spreading vine, with heart-shaped, angled, or lobed leaves and pinkish-lavender flowers. The tuberous roots are a valuable food, and they vary greatly in many ways, as in color and shape. Though of South American origin, the plant has been a staple food since ancient times in many parts of Polynesia, as well as in some other regions.

• Related:
  • Also: ʻuwala.
• References:
  • HP 131–66, Neal 706–7.
  • PEP kumala; cognates elsewhere in Polynesia may be borrowings from PEP.

2. n., A variety of sugar cane, a yellow mutant of ʻakoki with large stalks; often called pilimai and similar to it but stronger.

• References:
  • HP 221, 225.

3. See uhi ʻuala, a variety of yam (Dioscorea alata 🌐).

4. n., Large muscles of the upper arm, biceps, brachii.

5. n., A kind of cowry shell (no data).