Word.ws English Dictionary

indri

Syllables: in·driUK/ˈɪndɹi/

indri noun: one of the largest living lemurs (Indri indri), native to Madagascar.

indri: one of the largest living lemurs (Indri indri), native to Madagascar
Image: Erik Patel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

indri (plural indris)

  1. One of the largest living lemurs (Indri indri), native to Madagascar.
    • Indri, the ſecond new genus, conſiſts at preſent but of two ſpecies, the Linnæan lemur indri and the laniger; the former of which is lemur brevicaudatus of Geoffroy [i.e., Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire]; and the latter indri longicaudatus of the ſame author.1819, “LEMUR”, in Abraham Rees, editor, The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature. [...] In Thirty-nine Volumes, volume XX, London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees...
    • The indris are distuinguished by having only thirty teeth. [...] The Indri (Indris laniger) is the largest known species of the lemurine Quadrumana, measuring when erect more than three feet in height, and is of very remarkable form. [...] The indris inhabit the forests of Madagascar. They are very...[1873], Thomas Rymer Jones, “Order II. Quadrumana. Four-handed Mammals.”, in Mammalia: A Popular Introduction to Natural History, London: Frederick Warne and Co., […]; New York, N.Y.: Scribner...
    Synonyms:
    babacoote, babakoto

Noun (2) capitalized: Indri

Indri pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A mostly Muslim ethnic group of Western Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan.

Proper noun capitalized: Indri

Indri

  1. Their Ubangian language.

indri meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Arabic and Indonesian

indri in Urdu

Indri indri
اندری

indri in Bengali

Indri indri
ইন্দ্রি indri

indri in Arabic

Indri indri
إندري شائع

indri in Indonesian

Indri indri
indri
More languagesFewer languages
indri in Persian
ایندری
indri in Thai
อินดรี

Examples of indri in a sentence

  • They are very gentle, and although not remarkable for intelligence, are trained by the natives (who call the indri, "the man of the woods"), to hunt, probably for birds.[1873], Thomas Rymer Jones, “Order II. Quadrumana. Four-handed Mammals.”, in Mammalia: A Popular Introduction to Natural History, London...
  • The Indri (Indri indri; top left), the largest prosimian at up to three feet long (excluding tail) and 22 pounds, eats plant matter.1993, Jan Sovak, Zoo Animals Coloring Book (Dover Pictorial Archive Series), New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 20:
  • The indri inhabits coastal and montane rainforest from sea level to about 1,800 meters.1999, Ernest Pillsbury Walker, Ronald M. Nowak, “Avahi, Sifakas, and Indri: Indriiae”, in Walker’s Primates of the World, Baltimore, Md....
  • Indris are known for their calls, some of which are truly eerie and can be heard for miles in the dense undergrowth.2011, William Powell, Ochan Kusuma-Powell, “Knowing Our Collegial Relations”, in How to Teach Now: Five Keys to Personalized Learning in...

Synonyms of indri

Forms of indri

pluralindris

Origin of indri

Possibly from Malagasy endrina (“the lemur Indri indri”). A common explanation asserts that the word comes from the Malagasy indry (pronounced /ˈiɳɖʐʲ/) meaning “lo!” or “behold!”, or from indry izy (“There he is!”), which guides shouted to the French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat (1748–1814) upon seeing the animal, and which Sonnerat mistook for its name, but it has been suggested that Sonnerat studied indris too closely for this story to be plausible.

Questions about indri

What does indri mean?
Indri means one of the largest living lemurs (Indri indri), native to Madagascar.
What is indri in Urdu?
Indri in Urdu is اندری. See Indri meaning in Urdu.
How do you use indri in a sentence?
They are very gentle, and although not remarkable for intelligence, are trained by the natives (who call the indri, "the man of the woods"), to hunt, probably for birds.
What part of speech is indri?
Indri can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce indri?
Indri is pronounced /ˈɪndɹi/ (UK).
What is the plural of indri?
The plural of indri is indris.

Words near indri in the dictionary

  1. indrench
  2. indrenched
  3. indrenches
  4. indrenching
  5. indrew
  6. indri
  7. indricothere
  8. indricotheres
  9. indrid
  10. indrids
  11. indrift

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: indri (page history and authors); Indri (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-indri.ogg.

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