cheem

C3H4E1E1M3
Singapore[t͡ʃʰiːm(˦)]

adjective

Deep; profound; complex.

Scrabble 12

Meanings

adjectivecheem (comparative more cheem, superlative most cheem)

comparative more cheem · superlative most cheem · alternative chim

  1. SingaporeinformalDeep; profound; complex.

    Postmodernist discourse is *not* cheem.

    1999 December 30, <aescu...@my-deja.com>, “Pretentious Bullshit Alive and Well in Singapore”, in soc.culture.singapore (Usenet)
    2 more examples

    You might consider it too cheem and arty farty but just pick up any journal on cultural studies and you'll find more cheem and arty farty stuff in them

    1999 December 23, Dennis Kwek, “Pretentious Bullshit Alive and Well in Singapore”, in soc.culture.singapore (Usenet)

    You know what’s cheem? Our CPF is cheem.

    2014 June 23, Jonathan Lim, “17 Singlish words that offer so much more than their English equivalents”, in Mothership.SG, archived from the original on 25 Jun 2014

Origin

  1. Teochew深“deep”
  2. Hokkien深“deep”
  3. Englishcheem

Borrowed from either Hokkien 深 (chhim, “deep”) or Teochew 深 (cim¹, “deep”).

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

cheem. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cheem

MLA

“cheem.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cheem. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cheem,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cheem.

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