Last updated on January 25, 2024
This word is difficult to find in the dictionaries because the “proper” form is actually “gemas”.
Gemes is the Jakartanese pronunciation. The word describes the emotion of intense and passionated anger, but the way you will mostly encounter it in Indonesian is in one set phrase (which you will quite frequently hear): “gemes aku melihat anak itu”.
Why would you feel passionated anger towards a little cute baby? Well, this is precisely the nature of gemes. The passion that you feel can also be very strong love. In English we have a very similar expression, which also combines strong love with the desire to destroy the object of your love: “I like her so much, I could eat her up”.
This is precisely what gemes is. In the KBBI gemes is described as “sangat suka bercampur jengkel” .