towkay
/ˈt̪au̯.keɪ/
towkay noun: a business owner; boss (especially a Chinese Malaysian or Chinese Singaporean boss).
Noun
towkay (plural towkays)
- A business owner; boss (especially a Chinese Malaysian or Chinese Singaporean boss).
- My own experience would lead me to suggest that the Chinese immigrants should be placed under one Towkay, or head man, who would control those villages under his care.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 352
- Term of address for a business owner boss.
towkay meaning in Bengali, Tagalog, Malay and Indonesian
towkay in Bengali
- একজন ব্যবসার মালিক
towkay in Tagalog
- business owner
- taoke
towkay in Malay
- business owner
- tokeh, tauke
towkay in Indonesian
- business owner
- tauke
More languagesFewer languages
- towkay in Thai
- เถ้าแก่ tâo-gɛ̀ɛ
Synonyms of towkay
Forms of towkay
| plural | towkays |
|---|
Origin of towkay
From Hokkien 頭家 /头家 (thâu-ke, “boss”). Doublet of taoke.
Questions about towkay
- What does towkay mean?
- Towkay means a business owner; boss (especially a Chinese Malaysian or Chinese Singaporean boss).
- What is towkay in Bengali?
- Towkay in Bengali is একজন ব্যবসার মালিক. See Towkay meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is towkay?
- Towkay is a noun.
- How do you pronounce towkay?
- Towkay is pronounced /ˈt̪au̯.keɪ/.
- What is the plural of towkay?
- The plural of towkay is towkays.
Words near towkay in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: towkay (page history and authors); towkay (Bengali Wiktionary) (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: “towkay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/towkay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.