Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The Andean root vegetable Mirabilis expansa, important to the Incas.
  • adverb Hawaii inland, towards the mountains.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Hawaiian

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word mauka.

Examples

  • I kekahi la ae, haalele lakou ia Kapakai, holo aku la lakou a mawaho pono o Kauhola, nana aku la o Aiwohikupua i ka akoakoa lehulehu ana o na kanaka mauka o Kapaau.

    The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai Martha Warren Beckwith 1915

  • Hosts of guests had known the comfort and joy of her mountain house on Tantalus, and of her volcano house, her mauka (mountainward) house, and her makai (seaward) house on the big island of Hawaii.

    ON THE MAKALOA MAT 2010

  • Wilton's poor mauka lands and added to them and built up about them the Kilohana Ranch —

    ON THE MAKALOA MAT 2010

  • As an element of worldbuilding, that detail is great, particularly the contrast of mauka/makai.

    kateelliott: Sense of Place kateelliott 2009

  • The standing joke for years here is that every weather forecast which used the phrase "windward and mauka showers" would be accurate 98% of the time, and that would usually be all you needed to know, too.

    In praise of Fox Newsthe local station, anywayand really just the weather guy 2009

  • "We rode out from gay Mana and continued the gay progress — down the lava trails to Kiholo to the swimming and the fishing and the feasting and the sleeping in the warm sand under the palms; and up to Puuwaawaa, and more pig-sticking, and roping and driving, and wild mutton from the upper pasture-lands; and on through Kona, now mauka"

    ON THE MAKALOA MAT 2010

  • The skydiver, an off-duty Navy SEAL, was found in a pond mauka of

    KIA KIA/BNR 2009

  • Two storied, arranged in quads like dorms at the northeastern university I'd flunked out of, the barracks were high ceilinged and open to the winds off the mauka side of the island.

    Pacific Light 2010

  • The building is on the mauka side of King, 1/2 block 'ewa of Ke'eaumoku.

    Archive 2009-02-01 Esther 2009

  • His grandfather, Stanley Dunham, is buried at Punchbowl Cemetery, just mauka (toward mountains) of downtown Honolulu and the State Capitol.

    Kathy Harter: Obama 'Ohana: Democratic Nominee Gets Warm Welcome In Hawaii 2008

Comments

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  • I first heard this visiting relatives in Hawaii.

    February 5, 2011

  • The opposite of makai.

    February 6, 2011