East Indies
Americanplural noun
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Also called the Indies. SE Asia, including East Timor, India, Indonesia, and the Malay Archipelago.
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the Malay Archipelago.
plural noun
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the Malay Archipelago, including or excluding the Philippines
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SE Asia in general
Other Word Forms
- East Indian adjective
- pseudo-East Indian adjective
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The great stories of exploration and trade and imperial rivalry are here, from the Phoenician sailors who plied the ancient Mediterranean to the 17th-century Dutch who traded in the East Indies.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 17, 2026
Born in what was the Dutch East Indies, she moved to the Netherlands as a teenager.
From BBC • Dec. 16, 2023
Japan occupied Indonesia, a former Dutch colony called the Dutch East Indies, from 1942 until Tokyo surrendered in August 1945.
From Seattle Times • Jun. 15, 2023
Jacob Luitjens was born April 18, 1919, in Buitenzorg, in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Bogor on the Indonesian island of Java.
From Washington Post • Dec. 20, 2022
“Well, Mr. Bowditch,” he growled, “what do you think of the Dutch East Indies in general and Sunda Strait in particular?”
From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
