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Rapa Nui3 Oct 2026people

tingo

TING-oh[ˈtiŋo]

to borrow a friend's things one by one until the house is empty

Closest in English: scrounging, mooching, cadging. None of them covers it.

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The story

In 2005 this word fronted 'The Meaning of Tingo', the bestseller that set off the whole untranslatable-words craze — this game included. Fair warning: whether Rapa Nui speakers ever used it quite this way is disputed, and the paper trail is thin. The habit, at least, is real everywhere; English calls it scrounging.

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A real game of this word, in 21 seconds.

How it went in the game

Contains the answers. If you want to play the word yourself first, leave this closed.

  1. Which language is it from?Rapa Nui (Chile)
  2. Who says it most often?A neighbour eyeing your ladder
  3. Where would you hear it?The neighbour back for your drill
  4. What does it mean?Borrowing a house empty, item by item

How it went

Harder than most words so far.

The most common guess for the translation was 'borrow'. Close, but not it.

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