Kaek = customer, guest

Kaek = person from Indian subcontinent, arab

Is this the same word?

From the Royal Institute Dictionary, online.

แขก ๑ น.ผู้มาหา, ผู้มาแต่อื่น, ผู้ที่มาร่วมงานพิธีของเจ้าภาพ,บางทีเรียกว่า

แขกเหรื่อ; คนบ้านอื่นที่มาช่วยทํางาน.

Kaek: 1. (noun) a person who comes to visit; a person who comes from elsewhere; a person who participates in a sponsored ceremony; .. . ; people from other [village] households who help perform a particular task.

แขก ๒ น.คําเรียกชาวอินเดีย ศรีลังกา ปากีสถาน บังกลาเทศ อัฟกานิสถาน

เนปาล ชวา มลายู ชาวเอเชียตะวันออกกลางและตะวันออกใกล้

ยกเว้นชาวยิว แอฟริกาเหนือ และ นิโกร.

Kaek 2. (noun) a word used to refer to people from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Java, Malaya, Middle Easterners, Near Easterners, except for Jews, North Africans, and Negros.

[translations are mine.] Note, the Thai spellings are identical.

As per David's post, yes, "kaek" has two meanings ("guest", and "person of Middle-Eastern/South-Asian origin"), but with the same spelling and pronunciation (homonyms). (Whether that makes it one word or two, I'm not sure. What's 'a word', anyway?)

This is often seized upon in the tired joke whereupon the arrival of visitors, somebody says, "We have guests!" or words to that effect, and some smart alec responds with "No, they're Thai!" (Or farang, Africans, Chinese etc. etc.)

Funny you posted this. ..

The soi I live on has a LOT of people from India living on it, and to a person the thais working on the street refer to them as แขก. It's only definition of the word I knew.

Today I was just looking at some apartments and the lady showing me said it had a large ห้องรับแขก. I took her telling me that to mean it had a special room where "you received people of Indic origins", lol. I'd only heard of a living room in spoken thai as being a ห้องนั่งเล่น the "room where you sit and play".

I saw the apartment and alas there was no room to receive people of Indic origin anywhere to be had , but there was a HUGE living room . I kinda caught on that the word had another meaning. Then quite by accident walking home I stopped in a hotel which had a sign in the lobby saying that this area was reserved for guests who stayed there only. It used the word แขก for guests/customers.

Learn another meaning for a word every day and you'll know a lotta words eventually (unless you promptly forget what you've learned like I do . ..)

กล้วยแขก = กล้วยทอด: deep-fried bananas = manna from heaven

Today I was just looking at some apartments and the lady showing me said it had a large ห้องรับแขก. I took her telling me that to mean it had a special room where "you received people of Indic origins", lol. I'd only heard of a living room in spoken thai as being a ห้องนั่งเล่น the "room where you sit and play".

I have alway understood ห้องรับแขก to mean living room and ห้องนั่งเล่น to mean what Americans would call the family room or den.

I've always suspected (but can't say with scientific certainty) that the term แขก was originally applied to South Asians because they were the first visitors who came to the country in large numbers. They were welcome guests, perhaps not necessarily by the population as a whole, but certainly by the Thai regimes of old - which called themselves Buddhist but actually embraced Brahmanism, far moreso than what the Buddha had in mind, certainly - and that is still the case today (graven images, idol worship, fortune tellers, et.al). That Indiophile tendency was also demonstrated by their enthusiastic adoption of so much vocabulary from Sanskrit/Pali, as they seemed to have considered India to possess the superior culture of the time. If so, the South Asians (and Persians, etc.) may have been regarded back then as honoured guests. At least, they are allowed to own real estate, and have citizenship...

Granted, that's not what the average Thai has in mind when he utters that word these days - but it might be interesting to know more that Thai etymology.

แขก is also commonly used to refer to a client, or customer. Taxi drivers often say it when answering their mobile phones, to tell the caller that they have a fare. Some purveyors of other service professions use the term, as well...

รับแขก 'Rup khaek' is also a polite euphemism for prostitution, and as for nationality Thais frequently distinguish between 'white' and 'black' khaek, i.e. Arabs or Indians (middle Easterners or sub-continentals).

รับแขก 'Rup khaek' is also a polite euphemism for prostitution, and as for nationality Thais frequently distinguish between 'white' and 'black' khaek, i.e. Arabs or Indians (middle Easterners or sub-continentals).

From the news, a farang ripping off a computer store, having the characteristics similar to a white kaek.

กล้องวงจรปิดของร้าน บันทึกภาพขณะที่ชายชาวต่างชาติ ลักษณะคล้ายแขกขาว

What about แขกตี้

What about แขกตี้

What does this word mean? I can't find it in any dictionary. However, on googling it i found some videos on it. One of them showed one guy with a bit of a dodgy stomach. Is it slang for ขี้แตก?

Yeah, I found those videos also. Guessed it's a spoonerism too lol

Edited September 19, 201015 yr by katana

Yeah, I found those videos also. Guessed it's a spoonerism too lol

Something like that

This is not to be taken lightly. Some words like ตากแดด ผักบุ้ง ect are officially considered rude because of this. Whether people are agree with the official or not is another matter. The alternative provided by official are ผึ่งแดด ผักทอดยอด