Word.ws English Dictionary

otak-otak

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Singapore[ˈotaʔ ˌotaʔ]

otak-otak noun: grilled fish cake wrapped inside a banana leaf; a popular snack food in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.

otak-otak: grilled fish cake wrapped inside a banana leaf; a popular snack food in Southeast Asia,...
Image: Takeaway, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

otak-otak (countable and uncountable, plural otak-otaks)

  1. (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore) Grilled fish cake wrapped inside a banana leaf; a popular snack food in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.

Forms of otak-otak

pluralotak-otaks
alternative formotah-otah

Origin of otak-otak

Borrowed from Malay otak-otak, plural of otak (“brain”), from the resemblance in appearance.

Questions about otak-otak

What does otak-otak mean?
Otak-otak means grilled fish cake wrapped inside a banana leaf; a popular snack food in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.
What part of speech is otak-otak?
Otak-otak is a noun.
How do you pronounce otak-otak?
Otak-otak is pronounced [ˈotaʔ ˌotaʔ] (Singapore).
What is the plural of otak-otak?
The plural of otak-otak is otak-otaks.

Words near otak-otak in the dictionary

  1. Otaheite apples
  2. Otaheite cashew
  3. Otaheite cashews
  4. Otahuhu
  5. Otaian
  6. otak-otak
  7. otak-otaks
  8. Otaki
  9. otaku
  10. otakudom
  11. otakuism

Source and license

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