jiak kentang
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Singapore[ˌt͡s˭jaʔ˨˩ ˈk˭ən˧.t˭aŋ˦]
jiak kentang verb: of a person, to be westernized; to have abandoned one's own cultural traditions in favor of a westernized lifestyle.
Verb
jiak kentang (invariable)
- Of a person, to be westernized; to have abandoned one's own cultural traditions in favor of a westernized lifestyle.
- Of an ethnically Chinese person, to be mostly monolingual in English and unable to speak Chinese well.
- To eat potatoes.
Adjective
jiak kentang (not comparable)
- Westernized; rejecting aspects of one's own culture or heritage in favor of Western ideologies and practices.
Forms of jiak kentang
| alternative form | jiak kantang |
|---|
Origin of jiak kentang
From Malaysian and Singaporean Hokkien 食kentang or 食蕳砃 /食𫈉砃 (chia̍h kan-tang), from 食 (chia̍h, “to eat”) + Malay kentang (“potatoes”). Historically, the choice of potatoes over rice as a staple food, or its inclusion in one’s diet was seen as a shift towards a more Westernized lifestyle.
Questions about jiak kentang
- What does jiak kentang mean?
- Jiak kentang means of a person, to be westernized; to have abandoned one's own cultural traditions in favor of a westernized lifestyle.
- What part of speech is jiak kentang?
- Jiak kentang can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce jiak kentang?
- Jiak kentang is pronounced [ˌt͡s˭jaʔ˨˩ ˈk˭ən˧.t˭aŋ˦] (Singapore).
Words near jiak kentang in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: jiak kentang (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: “jiak kentang.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jiak_kentang. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.