kee siao attitude
- noun
- Slang
:
actitud kee siao
- Her kee siao attitude made everyone laugh during the meeting.
Examples
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You need a bit of a kee siao attitude to survive in this hectic office.
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His kee siao attitude often lightens the mood among his friends.
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He always shows a kee siao attitude during meetings!
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Her kee siao attitude makes everyone laugh.
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Her kee siao attitude made everyone laugh during the meeting.
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His kee siao attitude often lightens the mood among his friends.
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You need a bit of a kee siao attitude to survive in this hectic office.
Synonyms
An unusual, slightly playful way of behaving that stands out
Antonyms
1
4.6
A calm, quiet way of behaving that shows you are thinking about important things
How Silly
Surface Forms
Morphology
kee + siao + attitude
The segment 'kee siao' is a colloquial loan from Hokkien/Singlish and the individual tokens are not English lexical items with transparent meanings; their combined sense ('acting silly/crazy') is lexicalized and must be known as a unit. Knowing the English word 'attitude' does not make the meaning recoverable for a B1 learner who only knows the constituent forms, so the expression functions idiomatically rather than compositionally.
Etymology
Kee siao attitude comes from a Hokkien saying where kee siao means 'crazy' or 'silly' and attitude is how someone behaves. One popular story says the words paint the image of a person acting a bit wild and playful, so today kee siao attitude means an odd, funny way of behaving that often makes people laugh.