Etymology

Malay

M3A1L1A1Y4

Today it means: Of or relating to the Malays, a people living in Brunei and coastal regions of Borneo including Kalimantan in Indonesia, on the eastern coast of Sumatra, the islands of Bangka and Belitung, the Riau archipelago, in most of the Malay Peninsula including the southernmost provinces of Thailand, states of West Malaysia (where they are politically dominant in the federation), and in Singapore. Full definition →

Malay Melayu
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The story

  1. Malay · derived fromMelayu
  2. English todayMalay

From Malay Melayu, from Malayu, a kingdom on Sumatra's eastern coast (today's Jambi), mentioned by the Chinese Monk Yijing as 末羅瑜國 and during the Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties as 木剌由, 麻里予兒, 巫來由 and 無來由. First attested in English as 1598. Exonymous derivation from Malayalam മല (mala, “mountain”) has not been demonstrated.

Words from the same roots

MalayMelayu all →

Melayu

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.