Aloha is the Hawaiian word for love, affection, peace, compassion and mercy, that is commonly used as a simple greeting but has a deeper cultural and spiritual significance to native Hawaiians, for whom the term is used to define a force that holds together existence.
The word is found in all Polynesian languages and always with the same basic meaning of "love, compassion, sympathy, kindness" although the use in Hawai’i has a seriousness lacking in the Tahitian and Samoan meanings. Mary Kawena Pukui wrote that the "first expression" of aloha was between a parent and child. The Oxford English Dictionary defined the word as a "greeting" like "welcome" and "farewell" using a number of examples dating back as far as 1798 and up to 1978 where it was defined as a substitute for welcome.