Portuguese words from Malay
5 Portuguese words with Malay in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
amouco
It is borrowed from Malay amuk (“a furious attack; a man possessed by fury”), which Houaiss, Cunha, Machado and Nascentes write ⟨āmoq⟩ after Dalgado. The Portuguese form was the word's way into…
bambu
The origin is obscure. Wiktionary, Figueiredo, the DLP and Aurélio make it borrowed from Malay bambu, and Wiktionary traces that to Kannada ಬಂಬು (bambu). Houaiss and Cunha, following Dalgado, prefer…
junco
1. The word for the plant is inherited from Latin iuncus (“rush”). Wiktionary calls it a learned borrowing, and Meyer-Lübke held the Spanish word to be learned too; most Portuguese dictionaries…
lancha
It is borrowed from Malay lancharan (“swift, light”), first recorded as lanchara. Dalgado reports that Yule took the source to be lanchar (“quick, swift”) followed by a word for “boat”, and that…
mandarim
It is borrowed from Malay menteri, which Dalgado and Houaiss write mantari, from Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “counsellor, minister”), probably with /t/ changed to /d/ under the influence of mandar…