Dictionary

jialat en · ADJ

Borrowed from Hokkien 食力 (chia̍h-la̍t, “to be exhausting”), with spelling influenced by Mandarin Pinyin.

(Manglish, Singlish, archaic, qualifier:original sense) Sapping one’s strength; tiresome.
- None of the economists polled expect the economy to contract - be it a technical recession or a real recession - and hit the alamak and jialat ranges. 2015 December 17, Kelly Tay Soon Weilun, “The Singapore economy, colloquially speaking”, in Business Times, →OCLC:
- wah lao...... jialat ahhhh you. 1997 October 19, Thye Hoon Lin, “Singapore Ties to Heroin Traffickers: News Release”, in soc.culture.malaysia (Usenet):
(Manglish, Singlish, broadly) Terrible, disastrous; (of a person) affected by difficulties, in a dire situation.
- Seeing my Dad in that state was a huge shock. I was like ‘eh what the fuck! What’s wrong with you?!’ […] ‘Lucky I didn’t die, boy!’ he told me. Jialat sia. 2020 January 14, Justin Vanderstraaten, quoting Moon, “Drugs, Cash, and Prison. When Does Enough Become Enough?”, in ricemedia.co, archived from the original on 26 Feb 2024:
- According to his doctors, every minute he had remained unconscious would have added to his life being in danger. "If it were 10 minutes... jialat (terrible)!" he said. 2019 March 2, Lyn Chan, “When an emergency hits, will you know what to do?”, in Today:
- Jialat, jialat (very serious). This one jialat. Tell me about it man. Did you use it? 2006, Elangovan, Smegma, Singapore, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 25:

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
chialat		alternative	lexicographic
more jialat	Degree=Cmp		lexicographic
most jialat	Degree=Sup		lexicographic