kangkong

From Tagalog kangkong and Indonesian kangkung.

kangkong (uncountable)

1. Water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica), grown for food in parts of Southeast Asia.
   • 2004, GJH Grubben, Vegetables, page 334:

     Germination rates of local kangkong cultivars are often low (<60%) because of hard-seededness induced by long storage.

   • 2015, Eka Kurniawan, translated by Labodalih Sembiring, Man Tiger, Verso, page 1:

     Not long after the plantation was declared bankrupt, people had arrived to put up boundary stakes, clear away the water hyacinths and vast tangles of kangkong, and plant the marsh with rice.

• cangcong — obsolete, Spanish-based orthography

Unknown. Possibly from:

• Proto-Philippine *taŋkuŋ (“an edible plant, swamp cabbage: Ipomoea aquatica”). Compare Cebuano tangkong, Agutaynen tangkong, Tboli tangkung~tlangkung.
• Hokkien 孔 (kháng, “hole”) +‎ 空 (khong, “empty, hollow”). Compare Chinese 空心菜 (kōngxīncài).

Cognate to Indonesian kangkung and Malay kangkung.

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /kaŋˈkoŋ/ [kɐŋˈkoŋ]
• Rhymes: -oŋ
• Syllabification: kang‧kong

kangkóng (Baybayin spelling ᜃᜅ᜔ᜃᜓᜅ᜔)

1. water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica)

• “kangkong”, in Pambansang Diksiyonaryo | Diksiyonaryo.ph, Manila, 2018
• Blust, Robert, Trussel, Stephen (2010–) “*taŋkuŋ”, in The Austronesian Comparative Dictionary