tikam-tikam
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Singapore[ˈt˭ɪk˭am ˌt˭ɪk˭am]
tikam-tikam noun: a kind of lucky draw or lottery-like game popular throughout the 1950s to the 1970s; usually, prizes are won by pulling slips of paper or numbered tickets from a board.
Noun
tikam-tikam (uncountable)
- A kind of lucky draw or lottery-like game popular throughout the 1950s to the 1970s; usually, prizes are won by pulling slips of paper or numbered tickets from a board.
- Because school children were forgoing food to play tikam-tikam games with their pocket money, hawkers were eventually banned from selling tikam-tikam to children.2013, Kok Yang Tan, From the Blue Windows: Recollections of Life in Queenstown, Singapore, in the 1960s and 1970s, Ridge Books, →ISBN
- By day, she sold entrance tickets to those who wanted to try their luck at the teeming gambling stalls within the “City Park”, catering to the Chinese residents in the town. By night, she assisted at a pinball stall, collecting tickets and putting out tennis balls for a game of “tikam tikam”.2019, Yik Kwei, The Adventurous Streak - Revised, Partridge Publishing Singapore, →ISBN
Verb
tikam-tikam (invariable)
- To choose (something) at random.
- They cannot complain. Tikam-tikam means, play with chance. Sometimes win, sometimes lose.2021 December, Yap Swi Neo, You Might Want To Marry My Husband: Reflections from Life, Monsoon Books Pte. Limited, →ISBN
- Some days, it felt more like gambling than expert precision: Just tikam-tikam, lah! (Malay for “choose randomly,” commonly used by impatient people queueing to buy 4D tickets).2023 March 3, Sophia Shi Yin Chin, Dancing On The Edge Of Greatness: Making Leadership Personal, World Scientific Publishing Company, →ISBN
Adjective
tikam-tikam (not comparable)
- Arbitrarily chosen; characterized by random choices.
- it's open secret that finance industry is all tikam tikam one.2018 December 30, koja6049, lowyat.net
Forms of tikam-tikam
| alternative form | tikam |
|---|---|
| alternative form | tikam tikam |
Origin of tikam-tikam
Unadapted borrowing from Malay tikam-tikam lit. “to stab repeatedly; knife game” from reduplication of tikam “to stab”.
Questions about tikam-tikam
- What does tikam-tikam mean?
- Tikam-tikam means a kind of lucky draw or lottery-like game popular throughout the 1950s to the 1970s; usually, prizes are won by pulling slips of paper or numbered tickets from a board.
- What part of speech is tikam-tikam?
- Tikam-tikam can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce tikam-tikam?
- Tikam-tikam is pronounced [ˈt˭ɪk˭am ˌt˭ɪk˭am] (Singapore).
Words near tikam-tikam in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tikam-tikam (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: “tikam-tikam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tikam-tikam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.