to kena sai
- verb
- Philippine
:
meter la pata
- She tried to play it cool at the presentation but ended up kena sai in front of everyone.
Examples
-
He really kena sai when his secret was revealed to the whole office.
-
I really kena sai when I tripped on stage!
-
If you don't double-check your work, you might kena sai like last time.
-
Did you see how he kena sai during the presentation?
-
He really kena sai when his secret was revealed to the whole office.
-
She tried to play it cool at the presentation but ended up kena sai in front of everyone.
-
If you don't double-check your work, you might kena sai like last time.
Synonyms
2
9.5
Found unprepared and embarrassed when something unexpected happens
1
4.2
Do something that is a serious and embarrassing mistake
To make a serious, embarrassing mistake by being careless
How Embarrassed
10
4.9
- Offensive
1
3.7
- Philippine
145
1.1
21
2.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
kena + sai
Neither constituent is a recognizable English word for a B1 learner (both marked “[Word not found in dictionary]”), and the phrase is slang likely borrowed from other languages, so its meaning is idiomatic rather than compositional. Because the parts are not interpretable from standard English knowledge and the overall sense (to be embarrassed/caught/make a blunder) does not follow transparently from the surface words, a learner who only knows the constituents would not be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
Kena sai may come from two words: Malay kena meaning 'to get' and a Hokkien word sai meaning 'shit' or 'dirty'. Picture someone stepping in something dirty and feeling ashamed, so kena sai came to mean 'to be embarrassed', 'to be caught in a bad situation', or 'to make a mistake'.