Mauka

Mauka is an adverb and an adjective that means toward the mountains.  Coming from the Hawaiian language and still very popular in the fiftieth state, our word of the day has commonalities with words like ‘close’ and ‘fast’ as it may be used as an adjective and an adverb. Here’s an example of it as an adverb: We walked mauka for a few hours before realizing we were heading in the wrong direction. We should have known the place we were seeking was closer to the shore than the mountains.