Checking saved dictionary data and trusted language sources. This will stop automatically if a source does not respond.
/ˈt̪ʰaʊ̯.kɛ/ · noun
(Philippines, Chinese Filipino) boss; owner (of a business entity such as shop, etc.); shop owner; shopkeeper; business owner; employer (especially a Chinese Filipino boss).
This mixing can be seen in the language of the text, which is replete that languages other than standard putonghua: there are Hokkien terms that will be unfamiliar to those who do not speak minnanhua, which is further characterized by the use of Philippine Chinese expressions (huanke for the huaqiao, tuadi for the residence certificate, tsut si a for mestizo, taoke for employer, sengdi for business, for instance); and there are Chinese-character phonetic transcriptions of Philippine languages (anim, pito, kamatis, kilo, boy, sarong), English (boxing; the words ultimatum, Asia, OK, and King Kong, and bye-bye appear in their original romanized form in the text), and Spanish (chiquito). Although Bai Ren is careful to provide parenthetical translations of these verbal transcriptions, there are some words that remain untranslated, as when Chen Shan at one point lets lose the invective putang-ina.
Use taoke when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Taoke means (Philippines, Chinese Filipino) boss; owner (of a business entity such as shop, etc.); shop owner; shopkeeper; business owner; employer (especially a Chinese Filipino boss).
Common synonyms include towkay, boss, sir, ma'am.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
This mixing can be seen in the language of the text, which is replete that languages other than standard putonghua: there are Hokkien terms that will be unfamiliar to those who do not speak minnanhua, which is further characterized by the use of Philippine Chinese expressions (huanke for the huaqiao, tuadi for the residence certificate, tsut si a for mestizo, taoke for employer, sengdi for business, for instance); and there are Chinese-character phonetic transcriptions of Philippine languages (anim, pito, kamatis, kilo, boy, sarong), English (boxing; the words ultimatum, Asia, OK, and King Kong, and bye-bye appear in their original romanized form in the text), and Spanish (chiquito). Although Bai Ren is careful to provide parenthetical translations of these verbal transcriptions, there are some words that remain untranslated, as when Chen Shan at one point lets lose the invective putang-ina.
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.