zi char
US/tsə ˈtʃɑ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Singapore[ˌt͡s˭ɨ˨˦ ˈt͡ʃʰa˦˨]
zi char noun: affordable homestyle or restaurant-style Chinese dishes, from stalls commonly found in hawker centres and coffee shops.
Noun
zi char (uncountable)
- Affordable homestyle or restaurant-style Chinese dishes, from stalls commonly found in hawker centres and coffee shops.
- Just three shops away, there’s another zhi char (restaurant-style coffee shop) place.2006 December 31, Teo Pau Lin, quoting Benjamin Seck, The Sunday Times, Singapore, page L28
- The places I raved about weren’t the posh, fine-dining restaurants, but the declasse zhi cha joints, preferably with seating in an alleyway next to a longkang.2008 October 5, Colin Goh, The Sunday Times, Singapore, page 13
Forms of zi char
| alternative form | tze char |
|---|---|
| alternative form | zhi cha |
| alternative form | zhi char |
Origin of zi char
Borrowed from Singaporean Hokkien 煮炒 (chír-chhá, literally “cook and fry”), with Pinyin-influenced spelling.
Questions about zi char
- What does zi char mean?
- Zi char means affordable homestyle or restaurant-style Chinese dishes, from stalls commonly found in hawker centres and coffee shops.
- What part of speech is zi char?
- Zi char is a noun.
- How do you pronounce zi char?
- Zi char is pronounced [ˌt͡s˭ɨ˨˦ ˈt͡ʃʰa˦˨] (Singapore).
Words near zi char in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: zi char (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: “zi char.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zi_char. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.