Word.ws English Dictionary

geh kiang

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Singapore[k˭e˨˦ kʰjaŋ˨˩]

geh kiang adjective: overconfident and pretending to be clever.

Adjective

geh kiang (comparative more geh kiang, superlative most geh kiang)

  1. (Singapore, Singlish) Overconfident and pretending to be clever.
    • [O]ne never knows how such unsolicited advice might be taken. The owner might just ask me not to be too ‘keh khiang’ (clever by half) and to mind my own business, just as he was so successfully minding his.2005 December 10, Philip Lee, The New Paper, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings Limited

Verb

geh kiang (indeclinable)

  1. (Singapore, Singlish, indeclinable) To act overly clever and end up making reckless or unwise decisions without careful consideration.
    • […] Who ask you? Geh kiang lah. Think you so smart, […]2009, Jean Tay, Boom, Epigram Books, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii

Forms of geh kiang

comparativemore geh kiang
superlativemost geh kiang
alternative formkeh kiang
alternative formkay kiang

Origin of geh kiang

From Singaporean Hokkien 假勥 (ké-khiàng, literally “fake cleverness”).

Questions about geh kiang

What does geh kiang mean?
Geh kiang means overconfident and pretending to be clever.
What part of speech is geh kiang?
Geh kiang can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce geh kiang?
Geh kiang is pronounced [k˭e˨˦ kʰjaŋ˨˩] (Singapore).

Words near geh kiang in the dictionary

  1. Gegharkunik
  2. GEGL
  3. gegs
  4. gegs in
  5. Geguinta
  6. geh kiang
  7. Gehant
  8. Gehants
  9. gehenna
  10. gehennas
  11. Gehennom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: geh kiang (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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