redirected from
wa ko kuih
Commonly found variants; note these may range from acceptable alternatives to
non-standard forms or incorrect spellings*.
* Singlish is a largely spoken creole, and as such descriptivism (recording forms that reflect actual pronunciation in spoken language, or as appearing in the linguistic corpus) is more pertinent than strict prescriptivism. Nevertheless, the use of more standard forms (or for words originating in languages with Latin script, such as Malay, accurate to the original spelling) is recommended and encouraged.
* Singlish is a largely spoken creole, and as such descriptivism (recording forms that reflect actual pronunciation in spoken language, or as appearing in the linguistic corpus) is more pertinent than strict prescriptivism. Nevertheless, the use of more standard forms (or for words originating in languages with Latin script, such as Malay, accurate to the original spelling) is recommended and encouraged.
also can:
wah ko kueh wah kor kueh wa ko kuih
* The diacritic ◌̃ represents a nasalized vowel.
[ SSS:
wã ko kueh ]
wa ko kueh
→
Hokkien:
碗糕粿
poj:
óaⁿ-ko/ko͘-kóe
Detailed etymology
definitions
noun
- a traditional Hokkien steamed rice flour cupcake, which is soft, fluffy, and sweet. It is traditionally leavened with baking soda instead of yeast. The cakes are usually coloured in a variety of pale shades, such as pink, green, brown, and blue, but this usually has no bearing on the individual cakes' flavours (though some bakers may incorporate flavours, such as pandan or gula melaka in green- or brown-coloured cakes respectively). Very similar to ma lai gao and huat kueh, the latter of which is often just used as a synonym, though they are often differentiated as being somewhat larger and less colourful than wã ko kueh.
usage notes
* The nasal vowel is almost always unmarked by speakers, though it is very important to the pronunciation of the term. In a dipthong or tripthong, the recommended convention is to mark the final vowel, unless it is spelled using a repeated letter, in which case the first-occurring repeated letter is marked.