Meanings
agar-agar1
- uncountableAgar.
That done, you heat soya milk with oil and several flakes of agar-agar – a tasteless vegan alternative to gelatine – which dissolve into the liquid over 10 minutes, except they don’t, not really.
2018 July 19, Zoe Williams, “Can ditching meat and dairy open up new taste sensations? My week as a foodie vegan”, in The Guardian
agar-agar2
- SingaporeSinglishalternativeinvariableAlternative spelling of agak-agak (“to estimate”).
So I just got to agar-agar lor.
2018, Jean Tay, Sisters & Senang: The Island Plays, Epigram Books, →ISBN, Scene 17, page 99
- SingaporeSinglishalternativenot comparableAlternative spelling of agak-agak (“involving guesswork”).
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna colloidal extract of algae; used especially in culture media and as a gelling agent in foods
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
agar-agar · noun
- Malayagar-agar
- Malayagar-agar
- Englishagar-agar
Borrowed from Malay agar-agar (“jelly”).
More words from Malay
Full word history & related roots →agar-agar · verb, adjective
- Malayagak-agak
- Englishagar-agar
From Malay agak-agak. Here, the letter k represents a glottal stop, but it is elided by many speakers in Singapore.
More words from Malay
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
agar-agar. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/agar-agar
“agar-agar.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/agar-agar. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “agar-agar,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/agar-agar.
Source: agar-agar on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.