Meanings
- SingaporecolloquialinvariableslangTo bully or treat harshly, to punish (especially in military contexts).
"Wah lau! You tekan him, ah? But he bigger than you, man!"
1992 February 22, soc.culture.asean (Usenet)3 more examples
We have also been through training and we all kena tekan (were bullied), but even if we were ill-treated, we didn’t know that we were being ill-treated
2003 October 17, “Questions thick and fast in Parliament”, in TODAY, page 2When Hamdan joined their cell, Iryan told him the 1.6m-tall victim was someone they could tekan (bully).
2009 July 8, “Victim offered sex: Attackers”, in TODAY, page 10It will expose us to different ways of thought … like waking up at 4am and being tekan.
2013 July 17, “Paige Chua wears the pants”, in TODAY, page 60
Origin
- Malaytekan“to press or pressure”
- Englishtekan
From Malay tekan (“to press or pressure”).
More words from Malay
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
tekan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tekan
“tekan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tekan. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tekan,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tekan.
Source: tekan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.