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siew dai

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Singapore[ˈsjuː˨˦ ˌt˭aɪ˨]

siew dai adjective: less sweet (as a preference when ordering coffee or tea).

Adjective

siew dai (not comparable)

  1. (Singapore, colloquial, informal) Less sweet (as a preference when ordering coffee or tea).
    • Ordering a cup of Kopi C Siew Dai (Coffee with evaporated milk and less sugar) makes you feel very Singaporean.2007, iwatch_ueat, “Tong Ya coffee: super crispy kaya toast!”, in ishootieatipost, retrieved 01 Apr 2016
    • But nothing beats that cup of kopi-o siu dai from the nearby kopitiam uncle who knows you best.2009, Dominic, “Hello, Google!”, in blog.gothere.sg, retrieved 01 Apr 2016

Forms of siew dai

alternative formsiu dai

Origin of siew dai

From Chinese, though ultimate source language unascertained. Apparently 少底, literally "less base", from 少 (“less”) + 底 (“base; bottom”) in Cantonese pronunciation, referring to the condensed milk, used for sweetening, that sits at the bottom of the cup. In Cantonese this would be pronounced siu² dai², but the compound has not been traced in Cantonese.

Questions about siew dai

What does siew dai mean?
Siew dai means less sweet (as a preference when ordering coffee or tea).
What part of speech is siew dai?
Siew dai is an adjective.
How do you pronounce siew dai?
Siew dai is pronounced [ˈsjuː˨˦ ˌt˭aɪ˨] (Singapore).

Words near siew dai in the dictionary

  1. Sievierodonetsk
  2. sieving
  3. sievings
  4. sievish
  5. Siew
  6. siew dai
  7. siew mai
  8. Siewert
  9. Siewerts
  10. Siewiorek
  11. Siewioreks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: siew dai (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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