Meaning
ʻOno is a Hawaiian word meaning delicious, tasty, or savory and can also express relishing or craving something; it is widely recognizable in Hawaiʻi food conversation and local public language.
How it is used
The Pukui-Elbert dictionary tradition defines ʻono as delicious, tasty, savory, to relish, or to crave. University of Hawaiʻi's ʻŌlelo of the Week likewise presents the word as living Hawaiian vocabulary and uses it naturally in discussion of food and conversation.
Examples
- “The food was ʻono.”
- “That plate looks ʻono.”
Pronunciation
/ˈʔono/ · OH-noh, beginning with a glottal stop
Tone and register
Positive and appreciative. In food contexts it expresses enjoyment, tastiness, or appetite rather than a technical culinary category.
Visitor guidance
Preserve the initial ʻokina when writing careful Hawaiian: ʻono. Plain 'ono' is common in informal English-language contexts, but Hawaiian orthography distinguishes ʻono from other look-alike forms, including ono as the name of a fish and ono as six in older dictionary records.
Cultural context
ʻOno is not merely Hawaiʻi restaurant slang; it is a word from ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi with its own lexical history. Its widespread visibility in local food culture is one example of Hawaiian vocabulary circulating across community and English-dominant settings while remaining part of a living Indigenous language.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.