redirected from
wabokia
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:
wabokia wolbachia
* The diacritic ◌̃ represents a nasalized vowel.
[ SSS:
wa bo kiã ]
wa bo kia
简
繁
→
Latin:
Wolbachia
+
Hokkien:
我
poj:
óa
+
无
無
poj:
bô
+
囝
poj:
kiáⁿ
Detailed etymology
definitions
noun
- (humorous) a type of male mosquito infected with the Wolbachia parasite, rendering them effectively sterile. They are released in several estates in Singapore as a biological agent to control the population of mosquitoes, and thus reduce the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever.
Gahmen release so many wa bo kiãs, I dunno which one is the real dengue mozzie so end up I just whack all anyway.
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.