kiwen

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meaning

hard object e.g. metal, stone, wood

semantic space · lipamanka

kiwen are things whose form resists changing. This is almost always a hard physical material or object, like a rock or wood or crystal. It can describe something's material, so a chair made out of a hard material could be kiwen. kiwen can be brittle. Some rocks break apart easily, but they're still kiwen. But there are many brittle things that are not kiwen, so while kiwen can refer to brittle things, it never means "brittle."

It is additionally possible to talk about nonphysical things using kiwen, but it's imperative to explain your metaphor clearly. Ask two toki ponists about what kiwen means metaphysically and you'll get three answers. None of them are universally intuitive. Without this extra expansion, it's a good idea to avoid using kiwen to talk about non-physical things.

pu definition

  • NOUN hard object, metal, rock, stone

ku translations

solid100 rock93 stone84 hard object79 concrete60 metal57 steel56 iron50 firm44 stiff44 silver31 plastic25

usage

core · 99% usage

found in pu

coined pre-pu

origin

kiven: Finnish, stone (genitive case)

coined by jan Sonja

listen

kala Asi

jan Lakuse

commentary

This word was coined in a poll in 2002, replacing the compound phrase "wawa ma".

sitelen pona

kiwen

sitelen sitelen

kiwen sitelen sitelen

sitelen jelo

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sitelen Emosi

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ucsur

U+F191B

luka pona

gif · mp4

KIWEN

hard round object

one-handed · OpenA · palm facing down

multiple SLs · ROCK

toki pona luka pu · kiwen

Toki Pona Sign Language (Chuff) · kiwen