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• oriental
  oriental

  adjective

  Usually Oriental
• Oriental
  Oriental

  adjective

  (sometimes not capital) of or relating to the Orient

oriental

American  

[awr-ee-en-tl] / ˌɔr iˈɛn tl /

adjective

1. Usually Oriental

   1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the Orient or the East, typically East Asia; Eastern.

      The living room had a gorgeous Oriental rug.

      In the late 1950s, the university began offering degrees in Oriental philosophy.

   2. Older Use: Often Disparaging and Offensive. (of a person or group of people) being from the East, typically East Asia; Asian.

2. of the orient, or the eastern region of the world or heavens: stars in the oriental sky.

   oriental countries;

   stars in the oriental sky.

3. Zoogeography. Oriental, belonging to a geographical division comprising southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago as far as and including the Philippines, Borneo, and Java.

   This genera has twelve Oriental species, and two Australian ones.

4. Jewelry. Also Oriental

   1. designating various gems that are varieties of corundum.

      oriental aquamarine;

      oriental ruby.

   2. fine or precious; orient.

      oriental agate;

      oriental garnet.

   3. designating certain natural saltwater pearls found especially in Asia.

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noun

• orientals
  plural

1. Older Use: Usually Disparaging and Offensive. Usually Oriental a native or inhabitant of the Orient, or East.

Oriental ¹ British  

/ ˌɔːrɪˈɛntəl /

adjective

1. (sometimes not capital) of or relating to the Orient

2. of or denoting a zoogeographical region consisting of southeastern Asia from India to Borneo, Java, and the Philippines

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noun

1. a breed of slender muscular cat with large ears, long legs, and a long tail

2. (sometimes not capital) an inhabitant, esp a native, of the Orient

oriental ² British  

/ ˌɔːrɪˈɛntəl /

adjective

1. another word for eastern Compare occidental

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Sensitive Note

Is it Asian, Asiatic, or Oriental? See Asian.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• anti-Oriental
  adjective
• half-oriental
  adjective
• nonoriental
  adjective
• pseudooriental
  adjective
• quasi-oriental
  adjective
• semioriental
  adjective
• unoriental
  adjective
• orientally
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• orientals
  plural

Etymology

Origin of oriental

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin orientālis, from orient-, stem of oriēns “the east, sunrise,” literally, “rising” + -ālis, adjective suffix; equivalent to orient + -al ¹

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

oriental Oriental orientals

Zaref Atool is a dark, heavy fragrance - very much what people expect from an oriental style.

From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2024

The goal is to keep the oriental fruit fly from spreading to more crops while working to eliminate the pest.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2024

The pollen grains of various common plants like sunflower, morning glories, prairie hollyhock, oriental lily, evening primrose and castor bean — magnified 500 times and colorized in this image — display intricate patterns.

From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2022

Inside the city’s mesmerizing acropolis, French-Iranian oriental dancer Rana Gorgani twirled to Ghraichy’s piano playing.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 18, 2022

The dog loved to hide underneath big piles of clothes on our oriental rugs.

From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung

Nash Paragas, a rescuer in the eastern province of Davao Oriental, told AFP there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

From Barron's ● Jan. 7, 2026

A few years ago, the university renamed what was formerly its Oriental Institute, partly to avoid the “pejorative connotations” of the word “oriental.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026

The hamlet of Yojuela is home to some 500 people — all of Indigenous Zapotec origins — who reside deep in the Sierra Madre Oriental, in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2025

The day after the loss, the Oriental Sports Daily did not mince its words: "When the taste of bitterness reaches its extreme, all that is left is numbness."

From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2025

They ate lunch in a famous underground Arabic restaurant, full of Oriental rugs, called The Philadelphia.

From "Habibi" by Naomi Shihab Nye

In fact, the ebb and flow of florals and orientals is part of a dialectic over 400 years old.

From New York Times ● May 10, 2021

True pearls, or "orientals," are formed in oysters by the deposition of concentric layers of nacre, an iridescent substance, around a microbe or some other irritant.

From Time Magazine Archive

Secrecy surpassed itself when the League Secretariat officially announced that Chinese Delegate Dr. Sze and Japanese Delegate Mr. Yoshizawa had agreed to a "truce"'-whereupon both orientals denied the official announcement.

From Time Magazine Archive

I was shewing you how, shortlived as we orientals are, mankind gains in stature from generation to generation, from epoch to epoch, from barbarism to civilization, from civilization to perfection.

From Back to Methuselah by Bernard Shaw

Super-Israelimus— Or that, despite modern reasoning upon this subject, there was once something that was super-parental or tutelary to early orientals.

From The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort