Tiva
tiva
- (n.) knife
- (v.) to cut, to slice
- (v.) to use a knife
- (adj.) sharp
Tiva ia i katata i’i.
“Cut me some jerky.”
Notes: Since I brought it up recently, I thought I’d introduce the word tiva, which means “to cut”, roughly (the base word was “knife”, or a short cutting implement). The iku is a fairly straightforward combination of ti and fa.
Back when I coined this word (while I was at Berkeley), I had a pair of sandals whose brand name was “Tiva”. The “logo” (if that’s what it was) on the box was a gigantic spider, which turned me off quite a bit. The sequence was a licit Kamakawi word, though, so I thought I’d use it somewhere. I didn’t want it to be “spider” (too obvious), but somehow I thought it worked well as “cut”, and it’s been “cut” ever since.