Glossary - Page 5 of 5

(English version of “Noli Me Tangere”)

salabat
An infusion of ginger.
salakot
Wide hat of palm or bamboo and rattan, distinctively Filipino.
sampaguita
The Arabian jasmine: a small, white, very fragrant flower, extensively cultivated, and worn in chaplets and rosaries by the women and girls—the typical Philippine flower.
santol
The Philippine sandal-tree.
sawali
Plaited bamboo wattle.
sinamay
A transparent cloth woven from abaka fibers.
sinigang
Water with vegetables or some acid fruit, in which fish are boiled; fish soup.
Susmariosep
A common exclamation: contraction of the Spanish, Jesús, María, y José, the Holy Family.
tabí
The cry of carriage drivers to warn pedestrians.
talibon
A short sword, the war bolo.
tapa
Jerked meat.
tápis
A piece of dark cloth or lace, often richly worked or embroidered, worn at the waist somewhat in the fashion of an apron: a distinctive portion of the native women’s attire, especially among the Tagalogs.
tarambulo
A low weed whose leaves and fruit pedicles are covered with short, sharp spines.
teniente-mayor
Senior lieutenant, the senior member of the town council and substitute for the gobernadorcillo.
tikas-tikas
A variety of canna bearing bright red flowers.
tertiary brethren
Members of a lay society affiliated with a regular monastic order, especially the Venerable Tertiary Order of the Franciscans.
timbaín
The water-cure, and hence, any kind of torture. The primary meaning is to draw water from a well, from timba, pail.
tikbalang
An evil spirit, capable of assuming various forms, but said to appear usually in the shape of a tall black man with disproportionately long legs: the bogey man of Tagalog children.
tulisan
Outlaw, bandit.  Under the old régime in the Philippines the tulisanes were those who, on account of real or fancied grievances against the authorities, or from fear of punishment for crime, or from an instinctive desire to return to primitive simplicity, foreswore life in the towns under the bell, and made their homes in the mountains or other remote places.  Gathered in small bands with such arms as they could secure, they sustained themselves by highway robbery and the levying of blackmail from the country folk.
zacate
Native grass used for feeding livestock.

Learn this Filipino word:

balót sa putí