hum bow

English

Alternative forms

humbow, hum bao, humbao, hom bow, hombow

Etymology

From Cantonese. The first element appears to be unclear, either 鹹／咸 (haam4, “salty”)^[1] or 餡／馅 (haam6-2, “filling”). The second element is certainly 包 (baau1, “bun”), related to English baozi.

Pronunciation

Audio (US): (file)

Noun

hum bow (countable and uncountable, plural hum bows)

(Northwestern US) char siu bao with browned glazed bread
Hypernym: bao

Translations

char siu bao

Chinese:
Cantonese: 叉燒餐包／叉烧餐包 (caa¹ siu¹ caan¹ baau¹)

References

^ Lorraine Dong, Marlon K. Hom (1980) “Chinatown Chinese: The San Francisco Dialect”, in Amerasia‎^[1]: “For example, foods such as barbecued pork buns are called 叉燒飽／叉烧饱 (CC) ta-su-baau in many Chinatowns, but in Seattle, they are more commonly known as 鹹飽／咸饱 (CC) haahm-baau.”

[1] Lorraine Dong, Marlon K. Hom (1980) “Chinatown Chinese: The San Francisco Dialect”, in Amerasia‎^[1]: “For example, foods such as barbecued pork buns are called 叉燒飽／叉烧饱 (CC) ta-su-baau in many Chinatowns, but in Seattle, they are more commonly known as 鹹飽／咸饱 (CC) haahm-baau.”

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