Malay
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or characteristic of a racially intermixed people who are the dominant population of the Malay Peninsula and adjacent islands.
-
of or relating to the language or culture of these people.
noun
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a member of the Malay people.
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an Austronesian language of Malaysia and Singapore, differing from Indonesian only in orthography.
noun
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a member of a people living chiefly in Malaysia and Indonesia who are descendants of Mongoloid immigrants
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the language of this people, belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian family
adjective
Other Word Forms
- non-Malay adjective
- pre-Malay 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.
For centuries the Maniq -- one of Thailand's smallest ethnic minorities — lived as hunter-gatherers, roaming the rainforests of the Malay Peninsula, moving with the seasons in search of food.
From Barron's • Nov. 24, 2025
In 1026, Rajendra put his troops on merchants' ships and sacked Kedah, a Malay city that dominated the global trade in precious woods and spices.
From BBC • Jan. 17, 2025
De' Conti acknowledged the fruit's esteem throughout the Malay archipelago, but considered its odour nauseating.
From Salon • Jul. 22, 2024
The fruit is even embedded in the country’s financial lexicon: The Malay word for a windfall is durian runtuh, a term that offers the joyous image of durians collapsing to the ground.
From New York Times • Jun. 16, 2024
The 60 million Austroasiatic speakers are scattered from Vietnam in the east to the Malay Peninsula in the south and to northern India in the west.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
