# jiak kentang

> English word · Verb · IPA [ˌt͡s˭jaʔ˨˩ ˈk˭ən˧.t˭aŋ˦]

## Definitions
1. Of a person, to be westernized; to have abandoned one's own cultural traditions in favor of a westernized lifestyle.
2. Of an ethnically Chinese person, to be mostly monolingual in English and unable to speak Chinese well.
3. To eat potatoes.

## Etymology
From Malaysian and Singaporean Hokkien 食kentang or 食蕳砃 /食𫈉砃 (chia̍h kan-tang), from 食 (chia̍h, “to eat”) + Malay kentang (“potatoes”). Historically, the choice of potatoes over rice as a staple food, or its inclusion in one’s diet was seen as a shift towards a more Westernized lifestyle.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/jiak-kentang