Word.ws English Dictionary

wayang

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Singapore/ˈwɑjɑŋ/

wayang noun: a theatrical performance of mythological events employing puppets or human dancers in Malaysia and Indonesia (especially Java).

Noun

wayang (countable and uncountable, plural wayangs or wayang)

  1. A theatrical performance of mythological events employing puppets or human dancers in Malaysia and Indonesia (especially Java).
  2. A shadow theatre performance, or such performances in general.
  3. (Malaysia, Singapore) Any traditional theatrical work, combining drama, music, song and sometimes dance.
    1. (Malaysia, Singapore) Traditional Chinese opera, performed outdoors. The equivalent term in Mandarin is 街戲 /街戏 (jiēxì, literally “street opera”).
  4. (Malaysia, Singapore, Singlish) Insincere behaviour; an act meant to deceive or mislead.
    • There had been two important reservations made on the practice of consultation and consensus. […] The other reservation is that consultation and consensus is no more than a “wayang”, because views are not accepted and no changes are made to the original policy.1991 January 3, Lim Boon Heng, “CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE (AMENDMENT NO. 3) BILL”, in Parliamentary Debates: Official Report (Parliament of Singapore), volume 56, quoted in Jack...
    • Besides being adept at directing actors from behind the camera, [Royston] Tan is a bit of a wayang king himself.2006 April 24, Tan Dawn Wei, The Straits Times, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings Limited

Verb

wayang (mostly invariable)

  1. (Malaysia, Singapore, Singlish, invariable) To put up a front, to pretend (e.g., to be hard at work when one’s superiors are watching) or behave in a false and misleading way, especially if it puts one at an advantage.
    • […] some [MPs] have to do wayang wayang in the evening like meet the people sessions.2008, Zai Zai, soc.culture.singapore (Usenet)
    • It’s taboo to say that you’re free, even if you have nothing to do, because that’s like asking to get fired. I think it’s obvious whether someone’s actually busy or just wayang-ing—they start toggling between the same documents or surreptitiously using their phone—we just don’t talk about it.2024 December 8, Nadine Lee, quoting Jade, in-house counsel, “Singaporeans Confess How They’re Wayang-ing the December Blues Away At Work”, in ricemedia.co, archived from the original on 08 Dec 2024

Adjective

wayang (not comparable)

  1. (Singapore, Singlish, never attributive) For show, insincere or fake; ostentatious and showy.

Examples of wayang in a sentence

  • Dr Chee called the polls a ‘wayang’ and said they were being held so that the PAP could claim to have the people’s mandate to govern.2006 April 27, Lydia Lim, quoting Chee Soon Juan, The Straits Times, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore...
  • Mr [Inderjit] Singh […] had said earlier that Mr [James] Gomez told him the minority certificate incident was just a ‘wayang’, Malay for theatre.2006 May 11, Leslie Koh, Aaron Low, quoting Inderjit Singh, The Straits Times, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and...
  • They have to review whether they have revealed too much to the public before the wayang goes on.2007, lobert, soc.culture.singapore (Usenet):

Forms of wayang

pluralwayangs
pluralwayang
alternative formwajang

Origin of wayang

Transliteration of Javanese ꦮꦪꦁ (wayang, “shadow; imagination; puppetry”), from Old Javanese wayaṅ via Malay wayang. Cognate with Dutch wajang.

Questions about wayang

What does wayang mean?
Wayang means a theatrical performance of mythological events employing puppets or human dancers in Malaysia and Indonesia (especially Java).
How do you use wayang in a sentence?
Dr Chee called the polls a ‘wayang’ and said they were being held so that the PAP could claim to have the people’s mandate to govern.
What part of speech is wayang?
Wayang can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce wayang?
Wayang is pronounced /ˈwɑjɑŋ/ (Singapore).
What is the plural of wayang?
The plural of wayang is wayangs.

Words near wayang in the dictionary

  1. way-wise
  2. Waya
  3. Wayana
  4. Wayanad
  5. Wayanad bowtail
  6. wayang
  7. wayangs
  8. Wayao
  9. Wayatinah
  10. wayback
  11. wayback machine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wayang (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: “wayang.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wayang. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.