cikal

Cikal is a noun found in Indonesian and Malay that refers to a sprout or bud, typically the young growth that emerges from a seed or root. In everyday usage, cikal by itself is not common in formal prose, and speakers usually encounter it in idiomatic or poetic contexts where the image of early growth is relevant.

The term is most widely recognized in the compound cikal bakal, which functions as a figurative expression for origin, progenitor, or the earliest form of something. In this sense, cikal bakal can denote the foundational source of a movement, a culture, a family lineage, or a historical development. The phrase is common in journalism, history, and cultural discourse when discussing origins or beginnings.

Etymologically, cikal is linked to the idea of growth from a seed or sprout, a metaphor that has been extended to denote origins and beginnings. While it remains productive mainly in fixed expressions, its poetic or rhetorical use helps convey the sense of a starting point or ancestral root in Indonesian and Malay.

Usage notes indicate that, outside of fixed expressions like cikal bakal, cikal is relatively rare in formal modern prose. Writers often prefer direct terms such as benih or bibit for seed and asal-usul or sumber for origin, reserving cikal for expressive or literary contexts.

See also: cikal bakal.