Meanings
plural sinhs · alternative sin · alternative pha sin · alternative phaa sin
- A traditional tube skirt worn by Lao and Thai women, particularly northern Thai and northeastern Thai women.
After the change in regime of 1975, every woman seen in public was wearing a sin, as this was part of a dresscode favoured by the new socialist government.
2008, Robert Cooper, CultureShock! Laos: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette, →ISBN3 more examples
These dancers with their graceful upright carriage, their dreamy distant expressions and their party sins (the women were wearing sins made of brightly-coloured silk woven in squares and broad stripes and usually worn by men) were infinitely more appealing than the younger dancers and the electronic band but, as Darachit was fond of saying and without apparent regret, 'Les traditions ne sont plus respectees."
1992, Lucretia Stewart, Tiger balm: travels in Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia, page 25The only enforced dress codes now [in Laos] are for female public servants who continue to wear the sinh, though outside of work they can wear what they like.
1998, Grant Evans, The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos Since 1975, →ISBN, page 86Communism made things even worse by eliminating the export market for locally made textiles and, in some cases, prohibiting the production of silk and the manufacture of clothes. Although traditional sins were allowed, colorful ones were considered bourgeois and banned.
2009, Arne Kislenko, Culture and Customs of Laos, →ISBN, page 128
Origin
- Thaiซิ่น
- Laoສິ້ນ
- Englishsinh
Borrowed from Lao ສິ້ນ (sin) or Thai ซิ่น (sîn).
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
sinh. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sinh
“sinh.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sinh. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sinh,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sinh.
Source: sinh on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.