Gau
//ɡaʊ// adj, name, noun, slang
adj, name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A prayer box or small container worn as jewelry and containing an amulet or similar item. Tibetan
- 2 Alternative form of jow (“a pre-metric unit of length in India”). alt-of, alternative
- 3 District, region.
Adjective
- 1 Strong (used as a modifier after kopi (“coffee”)). Singapore, colloquial, not-comparable
"Kopi Gau"
- 2 Thick; having a strong or overwhelming flavour. Singapore, broadly, colloquial, not-comparable, uncommon
"But for all the eggs and liao (ingredients) you have, it isn’t gao (strong)."
Proper Noun
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"The five most famous swear words in Cantonese people ——diu、hai、gau、lan、cat"
Etymology
Etymology 1
From either Hokkien 厚 (kāu, “thick”) or Teochew 厚 (gao⁶, “thick”), influenced in spelling by Mandarin Pinyin.
Etymology 2
From German Gau, from Middle High German göu, gou, from Old High German gawi.
Etymology 3
Two main origins: * Borrowed from German Gau, a habitational surname. * A variant of Gao, a surname of Chinese origin.
Related phrases
More for "gau"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.