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die-die

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Singapore/ˈdaɪ(˦)ˈdaɪ(˦)/

die-die adverb: no matter what, absolutely, even if one dies trying; emphasizes urgency, necessity or commitment.

Adverb

die-die (not comparable)

  1. (Manglish, Singlish) No matter what, absolutely, even if one dies trying; emphasizes urgency, necessity or commitment.
    • When we’ve something to say […] we will die-die find the most compelling way to say it to our intended audience.2004 December 12, Colin Goh, The Sunday Times, Singapore, page L14
    • [O]nly about 100 [hawker] stalls got his highest ranking of “die, die must try”.2006 August 13, Teo Pau Lin, The Sunday Times, Singapore, page L24

Origin of die-die

Reduplication of die and a calque of Malay mati-matian (“desperately; with all one's might”), itself a reduplication of mati (“to die”).

Questions about die-die

What does die-die mean?
Die-die means no matter what, absolutely, even if one dies trying; emphasizes urgency, necessity or commitment.
What part of speech is die-die?
Die-die is an adverb.
How do you pronounce die-die?
Die-die is pronounced /ˈdaɪ(˦)ˈdaɪ(˦)/ (Singapore).

Words near die-die in the dictionary

  1. die-castings
  2. die-casts
  3. die-cut
  4. die-cuts
  5. die-cutting
  6. die-die
  7. die-hard
  8. die-hards
  9. die-in
  10. die-ins
  11. die-off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: die-die (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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