Cantonese

UK/ˌkæn.təˈniːz//ˌkæn.təˈniz/

Cantonese adjective: relating to the city of Guangzhou (Canton) or the province of Guangdong.

Adjective

Cantonese (not comparable)

Relating to the city of Guangzhou (Canton) or the province of Guangdong.
Relating to Cantonese people.
Relating to Cantonese language.
Relating to Cantonese food/cuisine.

Noun

Cantonese (countable and uncountable, plural Cantonese)

(uncountable) A Sinitic language mainly spoken in the south-eastern part of Mainland China, Guangdong (Canton), Hong Kong, Macau, by the Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia and by many overseas Chinese worldwide.
- As a mainland China national, the counter for our trial was fluent in English, Putonghua, and the Sichuan dialect, and was familiar with a number of other major Chinese languages such as Cantonese and Hakka.2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 10
- Each written word when spoken is mutually incomprehensible between a Mandarin speaker in Beijing and a Cantonese speaker in Hong Kong. If you think that’s odd, consider our number system: the symbol “9” is universally recognized but it’s pronounced “nine” in English and “devet” in Slovenian.2021 April 25, John Malathronas, “Which languages are easiest – and most difficult – for native English speakers to learn?”, in CNN, archived from the original on 22 Mar 2022
(uncountable) A dialect of the Yue language, spoken in Guangzhou (Canton), Hong Kong, Macau, and treated as the standard dialect of the Yue language.
(countable, in plural) An inhabitant of Canton; a person of Canton descent.
- The alliance was headed by a mustached Cantonese with a broad face, piercing eyes, and a great sympathy for the poor and downtrodden, a man who reveled in "action at all costs and whatever the risks." This was Sun Yat-sen, a visionary who lacked practical political skills but nonetheless became the...2000, Stella Dong, Shanghai The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, HarperCollins, page 85

Cantonese meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Tagalog and Arabic

Cantonese in Urdu

relating to the Cantonese language: کینٹنی keentunee

Cantonese in Tagalog

relating to Canton: Kantones
relating to the Cantonese people: Kantones
relating to the Cantonese language: Kantones
language: Kantones

Cantonese in Arabic

relating to Canton: كَانْتُونِيّ kāntūniyy, كَنْتُونِيّ kantūniyy
relating to the Cantonese language: كَانْتُونِيَّة kāntūniyya, كَنْتُونِيَّة kantūniyya
language: كَانْتُونِيَّة kantūniyya
person from Canton: كَانْتُونِيّ kantūniyy, كَانْتُونِيَّة kantūniyya

More languagesFewer languages

Cantonese in Malay: Kanton, orang Kanton, bahasa Kanton, bahasa Kantonis
Cantonese in Persian: زبان کانتونی zabân-e kantûni
Cantonese in Thai: ภาษาจีนกวางตุ้ง paa-sǎa-jiin-gwaang-dtûng, ชาวจีนกวางตุ้ง chaao-jiin-gwaang-dtûng, คนกวางตุ้ง kon-gwaang-dtûng
Cantonese in Vietnamese: tiếng Quảng Đông
Cantonese in Myanmar: လက်တို laktui, အင်္ကျီတို angkyitui, လက်တိုလူမျိုး laktuilu-myui:, အင်္ကျီတိုလူမျိုး angkyituilu-myui:

Synonyms of Cantonese

Yue Chinese
Yue
Cantonese language
Cantonese dialect

Forms of Cantonese

plural	Cantonese

Origin of Cantonese

From Canton + -ese.

Phrases with Cantonese

Words that rhyme with Cantonese

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about Cantonese

What does Cantonese mean?: Cantonese means relating to the city of Guangzhou (Canton) or the province of Guangdong.
What is Cantonese in Marathi?: Cantonese in Marathi is कँटोनीझ (kĕṇṭonījh). See Cantonese meaning in Marathi.
What part of speech is Cantonese?: Cantonese can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce Cantonese?: Cantonese is pronounced /ˌkæn.təˈniːz/ (UK).

Words near Cantonese in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: Cantonese (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-Cantonese.wav.

Cite this entry: “Cantonese.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cantonese. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.