Word.ws English Dictionary

lanai

/ləˈnaɪ/

lanai noun: a Hawaiian-style roofed patio.

Noun

lanai (plural lanais)

  1. (Florida, Hawaii) A Hawaiian-style roofed patio.
    • ‘If they vomit in the lanai, that's for the butler to handle.’1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, published 2010, page 22
    • In Honolulu, Nancy Peacock, an architect, said her clients increasingly requested “punees,” as daybeds are known in Hawaii — sometimes on the lanai, the covered porch of the house.2007 March 11, Tracie Rozhon, “To Have, Hold and Cherish, Until Bedtime”, in New York Times

Proper noun capitalized: Lanai

Lanai

  1. The sixth largest island of Hawaii, mostly privately owned.
    • While in Hawaii, he [Elon Musk] has resided at places owned by the billionaire Larry Ellison on the island of Lanai.2024 December 30, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, Ryan Mac, “How Elon Musk Has Planted Himself Almost Literally at Trump’s Doorstep”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Synonyms of lanai

Forms of lanai

Noun
plurallanais
Proper noun
alternative formLana'i

Origin of lanai

Borrowed from Hawaiian lānai.

From Hawaiian Lānaʻi, probably from lā (“day”) + naʻi (“conquest”), usually taken to reference an occasion when the wayward Mauian prince Kauluāʻau supposedly brought order to the island by expelling its ghosts and demons.

Words formed from lanai

Phrases with lanai

Words that rhyme with lanai

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lanai

What does lanai mean?
Lanai means a Hawaiian-style roofed patio.
What part of speech is lanai?
Lanai can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce lanai?
Lanai is pronounced /ləˈnaɪ/.
What is the plural of lanai?
The plural of lanai is lanais.

Words near lanai in the dictionary

  1. Lanagan
  2. Lanagans
  3. lanagitoside
  4. Lanahan
  5. Lanahans
  6. lanai
  7. Lanai City
  8. Lanaian
  9. Lanaians
  10. lanais
  11. lanameter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lanai (page history and authors); Lanai (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: En-us-lanai.oga.

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