Kepiting

Sea crab. Rooted in the Javanese word piting (ꦥꦶꦠꦶꦗ꧀), pinching or squeezing something tightly between two things, much like a crab's pincers, elaborated with the prefix ke-, a common Austronesian affix used to form nouns. Therefore, literally "the pincher" or "the one that squeezes". Javanese speakers use the word yuyu to refer to freshwater or field crabs. So it is the sea-crossing kepiting and not the inland yuyu that found its way into the imagination and cuisine of the Peranakan Chinese whose ancestors crossed water to arrive in the Malay archipelago. bakwan kepiting: crab-pork meatballs in a clear savoury broth, a quintessential soup of the Peranakan Chinese kitchen.