BTO, wayang, jialat among new Singlish additions to Oxford English Dictionary. So when playing Scrabble, these are legitimate words.

[Flibbertigibbet]

BTO, wayang, jialat among new Singlish additions to Oxford English Dictionary​

The word BTO often comes up “when discussing a couple’s relationship status", said the publisher of Oxford English Dictionary.

ST PHOTO: STEPHANIE YEOW

Lok Jian Wen

Published Mar 25, 2026, 01:17 PM
Updated Mar 26, 2026, 01:42 PM

SINGAPORE – “We’ve been together for agak-agak four years, but I’m still waiting for him to ask me to BTO, really jialat.”

Reading the above sentence and deciphering its meaning should come as a piece of cake, or to the more Singlish-inclined, kacang putih.

For others who cannot make head or tail of what it means, the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) latest update on March 24, which added some new Singlish words, might come in handy.

The OED added to its word list 11 new entries with a Singaporean or Malaysian English etymology.

The new entries included “BTO”, “wayang” and “kaypoh” that can be used in multiple forms as nouns, verbs or adjectives.

The initialism BTO has come to refer to the Build-To-Order scheme, or a flat under the scheme managed by Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB, a 2016 entry), but is also used as a verb when applying for a flat under the scheme, said Oxford Languages, the dictionary’s publisher, in a statement explaining its new entries.

The publisher added that the word often comes up “when discussing a couple’s relationship status, as applying for a flat together under the BTO scheme is seen as an important milestone, similar to an engagement”.

Hokkien loanword “jialat” originated from the words that literally mean “to eat strength”, and started out being used to describe something irksome or exhausting. The Oxford entry states that it can now also be used to describe a person in trouble or difficulty.

The dictionary also noted how a borrowed Malay word like “wayang”, which would refer to an Indonesian or Malaysian theatrical performance, has developed in Singlish into putting on a “false display intended to cheat” or as an adjective to mean “showy or fake”.

New entries from Malaysian English included “boleh”, a popular rallying cry in sports and politics, as in “Malaysia Boleh”. “Mat Salleh” was also added, a synonym of the Singlish “ang moh” previously added in 2016, which means Caucasian.

A couple of food dishes – assam laksa (”A sour and spicy noodle soup originating in Penang) and ice kacang (”A Malaysian and Singaporean dessert made of shaved ice”) – were among the new entries, joining other local favourites “kaya toast”, “nasi lemak” and “curry fish head” that were added in 2025.

Other Singlish words like shiok, lepak and sabo were previously added in 2016.

The March 2026 update also included entries from Hong Kong English, such as “people mountain people sea”, a phrase used to describe a large crowd of people, translated literally from a Chinese idiom.

Oxford Languages explained that a word will be considered for inclusion in its dictionary when its editors have gathered independent examples from a good variety of sources, and evidence that the word has been in use for a reasonable amount of time.

• assam laksa (noun)
• agak-agak (noun, verb)
• boleh (verb, intransitive)
• BTO (noun, verb)
• degazette (verb)
• ice kacang (noun)
• jialat (adjective)
• kaypoh (noun, adjective, verb)
• Mat Salleh (noun, adjective)
• play play (verb)
• wayang (noun, adjective)

 

[50000]

nothing new.... the English language over the ages is full of other "borrowed" words from other cultures and languages

 

[eatshitndie]

scrabble has its own dictionary and words with friends has its own too. some words are acceptable in scrabble while same words are not in wwf. for sexample “jew” is not honored in wwf.