Word.ws English Dictionary

Hailam

Hailam proper noun: hainan: an island and province of China.

Proper noun

Hailam

  1. Hainan: an island and province of China.
    • My father came from China; Hailam island.1983, John Platt, Heidi Weber, Mian Lian Ho, “Salesman (Hainanese): His father”, in Singapore and Malaysia (Varieties of English Around the World), volume 4, John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN...
    • In 1925, the association's name was changed to Kheng Chew Hoay Kuan, reflecting the official name change of the Hailam province. The association school, Aik Hua, was built in 1905 and extended in 1919.2001, Khoo Su Nin, “Muntri Street”, in Streets of George Town Penang, 3rd edition, Penang, Malaysia: Janus Print & Resources, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 128, column 2
    Synonyms:
    Hainan, Hainam
  2. (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southeast Asia) Hainanese (a linguistic variety of Coastal Min under Min Chinese of the Sinitic family)

Noun

Hailam (plural Hailams)

  1. (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southeast Asia) A person who traces his/her ancestry to Hailam or the surrounding area, especially those that ancestrally speak Hainanese.

Adjective

Hailam (not comparable)

  1. of or relating to the island of Hailam
  2. (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southeast Asia) of or relating to the linguistic variety under Coastal Min under Min Chinese of the Sinitic family and its speakers or people of heritage from Hailam

Synonyms of Hailam

Forms of Hailam

Proper noun
alternative formHai-lam
alternative formHai-Lam
alternative formHai Lam
alternative form (archaic)Hylam
Noun
pluralHailams

Origin of Hailam

From either or both Hokkien 海南 (Hái-lâm) or Hainanese 海南. Doublet of Hainan and Hainam.

Words formed from Hailam

Questions about Hailam

What does Hailam mean?
Hailam means hainan: an island and province of China.
What part of speech is Hailam?
Hailam can be a proper noun, a noun or an adjective.

Words near Hailam in the dictionary

  1. hail-fellows-well-met
  2. hail-shot
  3. hailable
  4. Hailaerh
  5. Hailakandi
  6. Hailam
  7. Hailamese
  8. Hailanpao
  9. Hailar
  10. Haile
  11. Haile alligator

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Hailam (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:

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