Etymology

eh

E1H4

Today it means: Used as a tag question, to emphasise what goes before or to request that the listener express an opinion about what has been said. Full definition →

Hokkien 欸 ← Mandarin 欸
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eh · interjection, verb, adjective1

Natural exclamation; first recorded mid-16th century. Perhaps an unstressed variant of aye (“yes, yeah”). The Philippine sense is possibly influenced by Tagalog e and/or Spanish eh.

eh · interjection2

  1. Mandarin · borrowed from欸
  2. Hokkien · borrowed from欸
  3. English todayeh

From Hokkien 欸 (--eh) and Mandarin 欸 (ê̄ / ế / ê̌, interjection).

eh · interjection3

Probably of multiple motivations, the sounds having been chosen for functional reasons.

eh · adverb4

A reduced form of ain't.

eh · particle5

From Hokkien 咧 (--leh), with the l dropped.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.