Kahuna

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A priest or priestess of the traditional Hawaiian religion. Hawaii

    "They were kāhuna, practitioners of the old Hawaiian religion, apparently offering themselves as sacrifices to appease the gods so that the queen would be restored."

  2. 2
    A great surfer.

Synonyms

All synonyms
priestess

Example

More examples

"They were kāhuna, practitioners of the old Hawaiian religion, apparently offering themselves as sacrifices to appease the gods so that the queen would be restored."

Etymology

Borrowed from Hawaiian kahuna (“shaman, wizard”).

Related phrases

big kahuna

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.