Word.ws English Dictionary

Altay

Altay proper noun: a prefecture in northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China. Also the alternative form of Altai.

altay: a prefecture in northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China
Image: Vitecek, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

Altay

  1. A prefecture in northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
    • The Kazaks were struggling in poverty before liberation. Some 2,000 people died of starvation in the Altay Prefecture from 1944 to 1945, and 40 per cent of the Kazak herdsmen in Altay County alone were homeless in 1946.1989, 马寅 [Ma Yin], editor, 中国少数民族 [China's Minority Nationalities], Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 161
    • In January 2010, a blizzard of such force which had not occurred in six decades attacked the Altay Prefecture, and the minimum temperature dropped to minus 40 degrees Celsius.2014, 李欣凭 [Li Xinping], 活力新疆 [Modern Xinjiang], Beijing: China Intercontinental Press (五洲传播出版社), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 201
  2. A county-level city of Altay prefecture, in far northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
    Synonyms:
    A'ertai, A-erh-t'ai

Also used as

Altay is also the alternative form of Altai.

Examples of Altay in a sentence

  • Yilamujiang grew up in Altay, a prefecture bordering Mongolia in far northwest Xinjiang.2022 February 5, Adam Kilgore, Christian Shepherd, “A cauldron-lighting flashpoint one night, Dinigeer Yilamujiang was a skier the next...
  • Torchbearer Dinigeer Yilamujiang hails from the mountainous terrain of Xinjiang's Altay prefecture.2022 February 9, “Beijing sells troubled Xinjiang as a winter sports paradise”, in France 24, archived from the original on 09 Feb 2022:

Synonyms of Altay

Forms of Altay

alternative formAltai

Origin of Altay

Transliteration of Kazakh التاي (Altay) and Uyghur ئالتاي (altay), from Mongolic, from Old Turkic 𐰞𐱃𐰆𐰣:𐰖𐰃𐱁 (l¹t¹wn¹:y¹iš /⁠altun yïš⁠/, literally “Golden Mountain”).

Words formed from Altay

Phrases with Altay

Questions about Altay

What does Altay mean?
Altay means a prefecture in northern Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
How do you use Altay in a sentence?
Yilamujiang grew up in Altay, a prefecture bordering Mongolia in far northwest Xinjiang.
What part of speech is Altay?
Altay is a proper noun.

Words near Altay in the dictionary

  1. altarward
  2. altarware
  3. altarwise
  4. Altavas
  5. Altavista
  6. Altay
  7. Altay Krai
  8. Altay Kray
  9. Altay Republic
  10. altazimuth
  11. altazimuths

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Altay (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Altay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/altay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.