Word.ws English Dictionary

kahili

kahili noun: a feather standard mounted on a pole, as traditionally used in Hawaii on ceremonial occasions.

Noun

kahili (plural kahilis or kahili)

  1. (Hawaii) A feather standard mounted on a pole, as traditionally used in Hawaii on ceremonial occasions.
    • A dozen or more of these gaudy kahilis were upheld by pallbearers.1866, Mark Twain, Letter from Hawaii
    • Mourners carried a hundred or more kāhili, some highly unusual or old or with special names, such as the malulani (shade of the heavens), a handsome large kāhili of black ostrich feathers.2012, Julia Flynn Siler, Lost Kingdom, Grove Press, page 118

Forms of kahili

pluralkahilis
pluralkahili

Origin of kahili

From Hawaiian kāhili.

Words formed from kahili

Questions about kahili

What does kahili mean?
Kahili means a feather standard mounted on a pole, as traditionally used in Hawaii on ceremonial occasions.
What part of speech is kahili?
Kahili is a noun.
What is the plural of kahili?
The plural of kahili is kahilis.

Words near kahili in the dictionary

  1. kahika
  2. kahikas
  3. kahikatea
  4. kahikateas
  5. kahikatoa
  6. kahili
  7. kahili ginger
  8. kahilis
  9. kahke
  10. Kahl
  11. Kahle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kahili (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.

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