Word.ws English Dictionary

kopitiam

UK/ˈkɒpɪˌtiːəm/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Malaysia/ˈkopitjam/

kopitiam noun: a traditional style of eatery having public seating and multiple vendors selling Chinese, Indian, and Malay food.

Noun

kopitiam (plural kopitiams)

  1. (Malaysia, Singapore) A traditional style of eatery having public seating and multiple vendors selling Chinese, Indian, and Malay food.
    • Bustling kopitiams sprouted around derelict whiskey bars like toadstools around rotting logs.2008, Preeta Samarasan, Evening is the Whole Day, Fourth Estate, page 23

Forms of kopitiam

pluralkopitiams
alternative formkopi tiam

Origin of kopitiam

Borrowed from Malay kopitiam, from Hokkien 咖啡店 (ko-pi-tiàm), in turn from Malay kopi (“coffee”).

Questions about kopitiam

What does kopitiam mean?
Kopitiam means a traditional style of eatery having public seating and multiple vendors selling Chinese, Indian, and Malay food.
What part of speech is kopitiam?
Kopitiam is a noun.
How do you pronounce kopitiam?
Kopitiam is pronounced /ˈkopitjam/ (Malaysia).
What is the plural of kopitiam?
The plural of kopitiam is kopitiams.

Words near kopitiam in the dictionary

  1. Kopino
  2. Kopinos
  3. kopis
  4. Kopite
  5. Kopites
  6. kopitiam
  7. kopitiams
  8. kopiyka
  9. kopiykas
  10. kopiyky
  11. kopiyok

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kopitiam (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: “kopitiam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kopitiam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.