Dai

//daɪ// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A wet nurse; a midwife. Bangladesh, India, North, Pakistan

    "Kausalya, she learnt, was his dai, the one who had breast-fed and looked after him."

  2. 2
    An ethnic group of China, one of the 55 officially-recognized minorities.
  3. 3
    A member of the ethnic group.
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A diminutive of the male given name David, from Welsh.
  2. 2
    A small northern state of ancient China. historical
  3. 3
    A surname.
  4. 4
    Initialism of Dragon Age: Inquisition. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, slang
  5. 5
    Various other kingdoms and princely appenages of imperial China named for the ancient state. historical
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    A prefecture of Shanxi under imperial China. historical
  2. 7
    A county of Xinzhou Prefecture in Shanxi, China.

    "Tian Yongsheng from Shanxi province is desperate to find a way to relieve the chest pain which has haunted him for years.[…] He is well aware what will happen if he is not treated. Many of his neighbours in Dai county - all coal miners - have died of the disease after suffering great pain. 'In the five villages [in Dai county] that I knew, all men from 18 to 50 suffer pneumoconiosis,' said Mr Tian. 'Among 100 coal miners, 100 have pneumoconiosis."

Example

More examples

"It's a sunny 26th of July of 2025, here on Lulu Island. As usual, I walk to, drink at, and snack at Tim Hortons café. In the morning there, I was talking to Gary the Cantonese. He knows that I lived in Japan before. He wants to visit. I recommended to him "one week in Tokyo and one week in Okinawa." We both agreed that what makes a place special is really the food. We both agreed that Japan is much like Thailand. We talked about World War II: In the Philippines, my mother was a little girl, to whom a Japanese soldier gave little toys like a toy chick and promised that he would marry her when she grew up upon his return. Gary talked about family members who had to swim across the river to get to another place in "Occupied Hong Kong." I didn't mention to him about my fantasies about the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere or "Dai Tōa Kyōeiken" in an alternative reality. Yesterday, I went to South Arm Park to view the forest. There was a colourful ice cream truck roving around, blaring the tune of "Music Box Dancer" by Frank Mills."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Hindi दाई (dāī), from Sanskrit.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Welsh Dai.

Etymology 3

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 傣 (Dǎi), borrowed from a Tai language. Doublet of Tai and Thai. Compare Thai ไท (tai).

Etymology 4

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 代 (Dài), likely from a presinitic name for the area or its people.

Etymology 5

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 戴 (Dài).

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.