Word.ws English Dictionary

towkays

towkays is the plural of towkay.

Meaning of towkay

Noun

towkay (plural towkays)

  1. (Malaysia, Singapore) 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
  2. (Malaysia, Singapore) Term of address for a business owner boss.
    Synonyms:
    taoke, boss, sir, ma'am

Questions about towkays

What is towkays the plural of?
Towkays is the plural of towkay.

Words near towkays in the dictionary

  1. towing paths
  2. towing tank
  3. towing the line
  4. towings
  5. towkay
  6. towkays
  7. Towle
  8. Towler
  9. Towlers
  10. Towles
  11. towlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: towkays (page history and authors); towkay (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: “towkays.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/towkays. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.