sia suay
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Singapore/ˌsjɑː ˈsweɪ/
sia suay adjective: causing embarrassment or disgrace to others.
Adjective
sia suay (comparative more sia suay, superlative most sia suay)
- Causing embarrassment or disgrace to others.
- Most of those who sing these songs are too drunk to be stopped. Sia suay (Hokkien for bringing shame to the entire clan) only.1989 November 2, “From love songs to 'pai kia' tune. Karaoke is BIG business.”, in The Straits Times, Singapore
- Later so sia suay lah2000 November 9, Daniel S, “Is YOUNG MING married???”, in Google Groups, Singapore
Verb
sia suay (invariable)
- To disgrace; to cause embarrassment for others.
- Kenna hantam until nothing to say in the old thread then start a new one to get ppl oin your side without your old posts to sia suay you.2007 November 21, Daniel S, “Only Queen's English.... in this forum..Singlish is banned ?!”, in Google Groups, Singapore
- Sending such ugly women to international pageants will "sia suay" Singaporeans.2000 December 4, vignette, “Singapore Miss World SUCKS!!”, in Google Groups, Singapore
Examples of sia suay in a sentence
- GUys, cannot break up like this SO SIA SUAY!2011 February 14, peebrain, “~FUNNY ~ 阿莲Ah Lianz break up with Ah Beng 阿成. On Valentine Day cos he nebber listen up!”, in YouTube Video...
- In other words, I think what Mr Ha means is that Xiaxue had “sia suay” their industry.2015 March 23, S M Ong, “Xiaxue not so 'sia suay' after all?”, in The New Paper, Singapore, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2015:
Forms of sia suay
| comparative | more sia suay |
|---|---|
| superlative | most sia suay |
| alternative form | xia suay |
Origin of sia suay
From Hokkien 瀉衰／泻衰 (sià-soe), 卸衰 (sià-sue).
Words that rhyme with sia suay
Questions about sia suay
- What does sia suay mean?
- Sia suay means causing embarrassment or disgrace to others.
- How do you use sia suay in a sentence?
- GUys, cannot break up like this SO SIA SUAY!
- What part of speech is sia suay?
- Sia suay can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce sia suay?
- Sia suay is pronounced /ˌsjɑː ˈsweɪ/ (Singapore).
Words near sia suay in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sia suay (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: “sia suay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sia_suay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.