malay

1. 1.

   of or relating to or characteristic of the people or language of Malaysia and the northern Malay Peninsula and parts of the western Malay Archipelago

   “Malay peoples”

   “Malayan syllable structure”

   SynonymsMalayan

Other forms of malay

plural

malays·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about malay

What does malay mean?

malay means "a member of a people inhabiting the northern Malay Peninsula and Malaysia and parts of the western Malay Archipelago". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in malay?

malay has 2 syllables: ma-lay. The stress falls on "ma". In IPA it is /ˈmeɪleɪ/.

What is another word for malay?

Close synonyms include Malayan, Malayan. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is malay a common word?

malay is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.