Khek

K5H4E1K5

noun

a Hakka person

Scrabble 15

Meanings

nounKhek (plural Kheks)

plural Kheks

  1. Singaporea Hakka person

    And the names of a Khek family, illustrating the custom among Khek people of giving an identical middle name to both sons and daughters:[...]

    1959, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, →OCLC
    2 more examples

    He gave up a relationship with a Khek woman whom he considered unbeneficial for his business and married instead another woman who was socially well-connected in business.

    1994, Kwok Bun Chan, Stepping Out: The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 120

    The Khek speak Akha (or Hakkah), which is the language spoken by the Akha people of southern China Yunnan Province. The Khek were driven out of their lands into the inhospitable highlands of the Yunan in south-west China by the Han Chinese some two thousand years ago, but they spread father south beyond the frontiers of China into Kentung Shan of Burma, into northern Laos, Thailand, North Vietnam, and of course Malaya. Ioka is the name of the guardian spirit of the Khek community. The Khek shamans are believed to be in direct contact with the Ioka. In the Akha language, the word of this shaman is tumo. The Khek are a very superstitious people.

    2020, Vincent Hancock, Legends of the Dragonfly: Fighting the Communists During the Malaya Emergency, 1947-1960, →ISBN, →OCLC
proper noun
  1. Singaporethe Hakka dialect

    More than half of respondents in Khek family usually use the address terms in the Khek language, while the other offspring in Hokkian family use the address terms in the Hokkian language.

    2019, Antonius Suratno, editor, Sociolinguistics Research in the Journey of Time, Semarang, Indonesia: Soegijapranata Catholic University, →ISBN, page 125
    1 more example

    The dialect of the first child, born in 1978 in a government hospital, was already omitted in her birth certificate. However, the dialect of the next three children born in private hospitals was registered as Khek (Hakka).

    2015, Jessieca Leo, Global Hakka: Hakka Identity in the Remaking, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 182
adjectiveKhek (not comparable)
  1. Singaporenot comparableHakka

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

  1. Hokkien客
  2. EnglishKhek

From Hokkien 客 (Kheh, literally “guest people”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Khek. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Khek

MLA

“Khek.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Khek. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Khek,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Khek.

Source: Khek on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.