Word.ws English Dictionary

hapa

/ˈhɑpə/

hapa noun: a person of mixed ethnic heritage, especially half East or Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander and half White.

Noun (1)

hapa (plural hapas)

  1. (California, Hawaii) A person of mixed ethnic heritage, especially half East or Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander and half White.
    • It's what my fiancé and I call ourselves, and how we think of the children we might have: second-generation hapas.
      But as the term grows in popularity, so does debate over how it should be used. Some people argue that hapa is a slur and should be retired.2016 August 8, Akemi Johnson, “Who Gets To Be 'Hapa'?”, in NPR, archived from the original on 19 Apr 2021

Noun (2)

hapa (plural hapas)

  1. A mesh cage-like structure placed in the water to hold fish.
    • Usually one female is placed into a hapa with two males to insure that fertilization occurs.2015, M. Chakroff, P. Corps, Freshwater Fish Pond Culture and Management, page 148

hapa meaning in Tamil

hapa in Tamil

துணித்தொட்டி, வலைத்தொட்டி

Forms of hapa

pluralhapas

Origin of hapa

Borrowed from Hawaiian hapa, from English half. Doublet of half.

Words formed from hapa

Questions about hapa

What does hapa mean?
Hapa means a person of mixed ethnic heritage, especially half East or Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander and half White.
What is hapa in Tamil?
Hapa in Tamil is துணித்தொட்டி, வலைத்தொட்டி. See Hapa meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is hapa?
Hapa is a noun.
How do you pronounce hapa?
Hapa is pronounced /ˈhɑpə/ (US).
What is the plural of hapa?
The plural of hapa is hapas.

Words near hapa in the dictionary

  1. hap'orth
  2. hap'orths
  3. hap-harlot
  4. hap-harlots
  5. hap-hazard
  6. hapa
  7. hapa haole
  8. hapaces
  9. hapaioside
  10. hapalindole
  11. hapalindoles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hapa (page history and authors); hapa (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Knabrupt-hapa.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hapa.wav.

Cite this entry: “hapa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hapa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.