Orang

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A large, mostly arboreal ape native to the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, characterized by reddish-brown hair and distinctive long arms used for brachiation
2. A great ape species notable for its bright orange fur and primarily tree-dwelling lifestyle found in Southeast Asian tropical forests
3. An orangutan, a primate with striking reddish fur that spends much of its life in trees, inhabiting dense forest regions in Indonesia and Malaysia

Etymology: Orang is a clipping of "orangutan," so its story is really the story of the longer word. The name most likely came into European languages through Dutch "orang-oetan," which seems to have been taken from Malay "orang hutan," literally "forest person," built from "orang" ("person, man") and "hutan" ("forest"). The Malay phrase was probably a descriptive one, used to explain the animal to travellers, and the "-ng" ending of the English form appears to be a later alteration of the first element. The Malay origin is contested. Old Javanese texts such as the Rāmāyaṇa use forms like "uraṅutan" and "wuraṅutan" for apes, and those examples date from as early as the 9th century CE. Scholars have used them to argue against a purely European invention, though a 2020 article by Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan keeps the question open, titling its discussion "Old Malay origin or European concoction?"

Synonyms: orangutan, ape, primate