ကျား

See also: ကျ, ကျာ, and ကြာ

Burmese

ကျား (တိရစ္ဆာန်)

Etymology 1

Inherited from Old Burmese က္လာ (kla), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-la (“tiger”), ultimately from Proto-Mon-Khmer *klaʔ (“idem”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ɕá/
• Romanization: MLCTS: kya: • ALA-LC: kyāʺ • BGN/PCGN: kya: • Okell: cà
• Homophone: ကြား (kra:)

Noun

ကျား • (kya:)

1. tiger

Derived terms

(Adverbs)

• ကျားကျားလျားလျား (kya:kya:lya:lya:, “manly”)
• ကျားကုတ်ကျားခဲ (kya:kutkya:hkai:, “tenaciously”)
• ကျားပိန်တွယ် (kya:pintwai, “clinging tenaciously”)
• ကျားလိုက်တုတ်ခုတ် (kya:luiktuthkut, “being forced to respond to a situation without due preparation”)
• သစ်ခုတ်ကျားစီး (sachkutkya:ci:, “tenaciously”)

 

(Interjections)

• ကျားသားမိုးကြိုး (kya:sa:mui:krui:, “monstrous! incredible!”)

 

(Nouns)

• ကျားကျုတ် (kya:kyut, “leopard cat”)
• ကျားကြီးဆည် (kya:kri:hcany)
• ကျားဂမုန်း (kya:ga.mun:, “slipper orchid”)
• ကျားနနွင်း (kya:na.nwang:, “wild turmeric”)
• ကျားနာ (kya:na, “wronged person out for revenge”)
• ကျားပါးစပ် (kya:pa:cap)
• ကျားမ (kya:ma., “tigress, she-tiger”)
• ကျားမျက်လုံး (kya:myaklum:, “bullseye lantern”)
• ကျားလက်သည်း (kya:laksany:, “giant clam; tridacna”)
• ကျားလျှာ (kya:hlya, “rasp, coarse file”)
• ကျားသစ် (kya:sac, “leopard”)
• ပုစွန်ကျား (pu.cwankya:, “medium-sized spotted prawn”)
• ပဲကျား (pai:kya:, “lima bean”)

 

(Verbs)

• ကျားမြီးဆွဲမိ (kya:mri:hcwai:mi., “to be in a fix, be committed without a chance of retraction”)

 

See also

• (Chinese zodiac signs) တရုတ်ဆယ့်နှစ်ရာသီခွင် (ta.ruthcai.hnacrasihkwang); ကြွက် (krwak, “Mouse”), နွား (nwa:, “Cow”), ကျား (kya:, “Tiger”), ယုန် (yun, “Rabbit”), နဂါး (na.ga:, “Dragon”), မြွေ (mrwe, “Snake”), မြင်း (mrang:, “Horse”), ဆိတ် (hcit, “Sheep”), မျောက် (myauk, “Monkey”), ကြက် (krak, “Rooster”), ခွေး (hkwe:, “Dog”), ဝက် (wak, “Pig”) ^{(Category: my:Chinese zodiac signs)}
• (Burmese zodiac signs) ရာသီခွင် (rasihkwang); ဂဠုန် (ga.lun, “Garuda”), ကျား (kya:, “Tiger”), ခြင်္သေ့ (hkrangse., “Lion”), ဆင် (hcang, “Tusked Elephant”), ဟိုင်း (huing:, “Tuskless Elephant”), ကြွက် (krwak, “Rat”), ပူး (pu:, “Guinea Pig”), နဂါး (na.ga:, “Dragon”) ^{(Category: my:Burmese zodiac)}

Etymology 2

Probably a semantic extension of the "tiger" sense in Etymology 1, owing to the tiger's striped coat (MED groups the "variegated" and "tiger" senses together).

Verb

ကျား • (kya:)

1. to have a pattern, especially striped, checkered, square, or with patches of alternate colors; to be variegated

Derived terms

(Adverbs)

• ကြောင်ကြောင်ကျားကျား (kraungkraungkya:kya:, “motley; variegated”)
• ကွက်ကျား (kwakkya:, “irregularly, in patches”)
• ကွက်တိကွက်ကျား (kwakti.kwakkya:, “irregularly, in patches”)
• ပြောက်ကျားပြောက်ကျား (praukkya:praukkya:, “sporadically”)
• ပိန်းကျား (pin:kya:, “in streaks and patches”)
• ဖြူနီကြောင်ကျား (hpruni-kraungkya:, “multi-colored”)
• ဘတစ်ပြန်ကျားတစ်ပြန် (bha.tacprankya:tacpran)

 

(Nouns)

• ခြင်ကျား (hkrangkya:, “the Aedes aegypti mosquito”)
• ငန်းတော်ကျား (ngan:tau-kya:, “banded krait”)
• ငှက်ကျား (hngakkya:, “various species of mottled birds”)
• ပြောက်ကျားစစ် (praukkya:cac, “guerrilla warfare”)
• ဖွတ်ကျား (hpwatkya:, “pied monitor lizard; useless person”)
• မျဉ်းကျား (myany:kya:, “zebra crossing”)
• မြင်းကျား (mrang:kya:, “zebra”)
• လေးကွက်ကျား (le:kwakkya:, “four-square grid pattern”)
• သက်ကျားအို (sakkya:ui, “old or aged person”)
• သုံးထပ်ကျား (sum:htapkya:, “morris, merel”)

 

(Verbs)

• ပြောက်ကျား (praukkya:, “to be speckled; guerrilla”)
• ပိန်းကျားရိုက် (pin:kya:ruik, “to smear, daub unevenly on the face”)

 

See also

• ကြောင် (kraung)

Etymology 3

Likely a semantic extension of the "variegated" sense of Etymology 2, considering the checkered pattern of the draughts game board (though MED separates the "draughts" and "variegated" senses); for a semantic parallel, note the extension of English checker from the board game to its characteristic alternating square pattern.

Noun

ကျား • (kya:)

1. game of draughts, checkers
2. draughtsman

Derived terms

• ကျားထိုး (kya:htui:, “to play a game of draughts”)

 

Etymology 4

Noun

ကျား • (kya:)

1. a transverse stay in the roof of a building
2. a prop or stay applied to the side of a house, boat or ship; a buttress

Derived terms

(Verbs)

• ကျားကန် (kya:kan, “to buttress, prop, shore”)

 

(Nouns)

• ကျားမော့ (kya:mau., “a strut placed diagonally between the ridge-pole and horizontal member joining the tie-beams”)

 

See also

• ဒိုင်း (duing:)

Etymology 5

Contraction of ယောက်ျား (“a male person”); see there for more discussion.

Noun

ကျား • (kya:)

1. abbreviation of ယောက်ျား (“a male person; a gent”)

Derived terms

(Adverbs)

• ကျားကျားလျားလျား (kya:kya:lya:lya:, “boldly, manly”)

 

Further reading

• “ကျား” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.
• Judson, A., Stevenson, Robert C., Eveleth, F. H. (1921) “ကျား, 1; ကျား, 2; ကျား, 3; ကျား, 4”, in The Judson Burmese-English Dictionary‎^[2], Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, pages 213–4