bagás
The Ilocano word for rice is bagás. Wiktionary also lists innapúy and inapúy.
Meaning: seeds used as food (noun)
Ways to say it
| Ilocano |
|---|
| bagás |
| innapúy |
| inapúy |
The term is used to refer to the seeds or grains used as food.
Which one should you use?
While bagás refers to the grain generally, innapúy specifically refers to rice that has been cooked and is ready to eat. The spelling inapúy is a common variant of innapúy.
Is it said differently in some regions?
In Ilocos Norte, the term for rice is often pronounced as bigas.
How does it change in a sentence?
The word innapúy is a derived form used to describe the state of the rice after cooking.
Did you know?
- Because rice is the central staple of the Ilocano diet, the phrase awan ti innapúy (there is no cooked rice) can be a shorthand way of saying there is no food available at all.
- Because of the influence of the Ilocano diaspora, you will find bagás and innapúy used in specific community pockets in Hawaii and California, far from the Ilocos region.
- Ilocano uses different terms for rice based on its processing stage, mirroring a pattern found in other Austronesian languages where 'rice' is not one word but a cycle of words.
Examples in context
- Dakkel ti bagás ditoy.The rice is plentiful here.
Example conversation
Rowena and Juan are in the kitchen.
- RowenaJuan, adda pay bagás?Juan, is there still rice?
- JuanWen, adda pay bassit.Yes, there is still a little.
- RowenaLutukan tayon dayta a bagás.Let's cook that rice now.
- JuanSige, aramiden ko.Okay, I will do it.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “rice” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
