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INDONESIAN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

kiai.

ulema

4 characters1 syllables approx.Bahasa Indonesia language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈkiʲaʲi]
  1. ulema

  2. spiritual teacher

  3. honorific for sacred treasure

  4. honorific for tiger (Panthera tigris), when trespass the forest

  5. district chief, in South Kalimantan

    historical
Where this word comes from

From Javanese kyai (ꦏꦾꦲꦶ), from Old Javanese kiya-kiya, kyayi (“respected person”). Semantic loan from Banjarese kiai for distric chief sense. Compare Proto-Malayic *akiʔ (“grandfather”) and Central Malay yai (“grandfather”).

noun/ˈkiai̯/
  1. kiai, the yell or shout uttered when performing a move in martial arts

Where this word comes from

From Japanese 気合(きあい) (kiai, “yell; spirit, fight”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.