Word.ws English Dictionary

chap lau chu

[t͡säp̚˩ lɑʊ˩ t͡sʰuˑ˩]

chap lau chu noun: a ten-storey housing flat built by the Singapore Housing and Development Board (HDB) in the 1960s (now mostly vacated).

Noun

chap lau chu (plural chap lau chus or chap lau chu)

  1. (Singapore, colloquial) A ten-storey housing flat built by the Singapore Housing and Development Board (HDB) in the 1960s (now mostly vacated).
    • Now empty, Singapore's chap lau chu in Commonwealth are the highlight of a quirky showcase… A group of recent Nanyang Technological University (NTU) graduates have zoomed in on the chap lau chu, Singapore's first 10-storey flats, built in 1962 by the Housing Board in Commonwealth Drive. … While the...2014 July 6, Kezia Toh, “Ghost town in Commonwealth Drive comes alive”, in The Straits Times (Singapore), archived from the original on 08 Nov 2016
    • Even as the years go by, chap lau chu still binds me to my childhood friends, many of whom have moved away to start their own families.2015 August 20, Aw Cheng Wei, “My fond memories of 'chap lau chu'”, in The Straits Times (Singapore)

Forms of chap lau chu

pluralchap lau chus
pluralchap lau chu

Origin of chap lau chu

Borrowed from Hokkien 十樓厝 (cha̍p-lâu-chhù, “ten-storey house”). Originating in the 1960s, with the building of pioneering HDB satellite flats.

Questions about chap lau chu

What does chap lau chu mean?
Chap lau chu means a ten-storey housing flat built by the Singapore Housing and Development Board (HDB) in the 1960s (now mostly vacated).
What part of speech is chap lau chu?
Chap lau chu is a noun.
How do you pronounce chap lau chu?
Chap lau chu is pronounced [t͡säp̚˩ lɑʊ˩ t͡sʰuˑ˩].
What is the plural of chap lau chu?
The plural of chap lau chu is chap lau chus.

Words near chap lau chu in the dictionary

  1. chaoyangsaurids
  2. Chaozhou
  3. chap
  4. chap chye
  5. Chap laps
  6. chap lau chu
  7. chap lau chus
  8. chap someone's hide
  9. chap-hop
  10. chap-jee-kee
  11. chap-ji-kee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chap lau chu (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.

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Cite this entry: “chap lau chu.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chap_lau_chu. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.