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haiya

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Malaysia/ˌhaɪ̯˨ ˈjaː/

haiya interjection: an exclamation of exasperation, said especially when a bad event occurs.

Interjection

  1. (Malaysia) An exclamation of exasperation, said especially when a bad event occurs.
    • Coordinate term: fuiyoh
    • Don't strain rice in colander, haiyaa!
    Synonyms:
    aiya

Synonyms of haiya

Forms of haiya

alternative formhiya
alternative formhaiyaa

Origin of haiya

From Hokkien 害矣 (hāi--ah).

Questions about haiya

What does haiya mean?
Haiya means an exclamation of exasperation, said especially when a bad event occurs.
What part of speech is haiya?
Haiya is an interjection.
How do you pronounce haiya?
Haiya is pronounced /ˌhaɪ̯˨ ˈjaː/ (Malaysia).

Words near haiya in the dictionary

  1. Haitianness
  2. Haitians
  3. Haivoron
  4. haiweeite
  5. Haixi
  6. haiya
  7. Haiyan
  8. Haiyang
  9. Haiythoshi
  10. Haiyuan
  11. haiz

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: haiya (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-haiya.wav.

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