lepak

See also: Lepak

English

WOTD – 31 August 2018

Etymology

Possibly borrowed from Malay berlepah-lepuh (huddled, slouched; slumped down)[1] or terlepa (sprawling from fatigue).[2]

Pronunciation

Verb

lepak (third-person singular simple present lepaks, present participle lepaking, simple past and past participle lepaked)

  1. (intransitive, Malaysia, Singapore) To loiter about casually; to hang out.
    • 1997, Aliran Monthly, volume 17–18, Pinang, Malaysia: Aliran Kesedaran Negara, OCLC 957285946, page 19, column 3:
      I think we should rally behind PM [the Prime Minister] for the sake of national unity. Without national unity, there will be more single mothers, abandoned babies, people lepaking (loitering) 
    • 1997, Marina Mahathir, In Liberal Doses, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Archipelago Press, →ISBN, page 118:
      We do things together and we lepak together quite a bit (hey, this is the solution to the lepak problem: the family that lepaks together stays together).
    • 1998, Thomas A. Williamson, Leaving Town: Kuala Kangsar’s Colonial Past and the Postponed Nation in Malaysia (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation), Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, OCLC 426209882, page 344:
      The study's operational definition was that "a teenager lepaks if he gathers and remains in a public place without any special purpose other than chattering or laughing."
    • 2005, T. R. R. Raman, The Wedgwood Ladies Football Club and Other Stories, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Silverfishbooks, →ISBN, page 189:
      "What do you think will happen?" a reporter asked a beautiful girl lepaking and smoking outside the Starbucks in Bukit Bintang Plaza. "Oh, at the bewitching midnight hour, everything will be back to normal. The office workers at Sri Hartamas will be back to their humdrum 9 to 5 jobs, no doubt bitching and wishing they were elsewhere."
    • 2011, Tony Wilson, “Beyond Attitudes: To the Audience Itself!: Understanding Consumers: Interpretive Inductivism”, in Global Advertising, Attitudes and Audiences (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies; 44), New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 36:
      Cafes mushroomed everywhere in KL's [Kuala Lumpur's] trendiest spots, and big names such as Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Starbucks made their presence felt. With these cafes, KLites often lepaked (hung out) way into the wee hours and now it has become a part of our pop culture.

References

  1. A. E. Coope (1991), “lepak”, in Malay–English English–Malay Dictionary (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary), rev. edition, New York, N.Y.: Hippocrene Books, →ISBN, page 211.
  2. A. E. Coope (1991), “lepa”, in Malay–English English–Malay Dictionary (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary), rev. edition, New York, N.Y.: Hippocrene Books, →ISBN, page 211; see also R[ichard] J[ames] Wilkinson (1901), “lepa”, in A Malay–English Dictionary, Singapore: Printed and published by Kelly & Walsh, Limited, 32, Raffles Place, and at Hongkong, Shanghai and Yokohama, OCLC 3226925, page 627, column 1:
    Tĕrlepa: thrown or lying carelessly about; sprawling; cast away. [] Badan tĕrlepa: sprawling; lying about, of a man in a careless attitude; []

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

Etymology

From lepiti + -ak.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /lěːpak/

Noun

lépak m (Cyrillic spelling ле́пак)

  1. (Serbia, Bosnia) glue
    Synonyms: lèpilo, ljèpilo (Croatia, Bosnia)

Declension

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