Word.ws English Dictionary

Italian of the East

Italian of the East proper noun: the Telugu language.

Proper noun

the Italian of the East

  1. (poetic) The Telugu language.
  2. (poetic) The Malay language.
    • Or in soft whispers may he be address'd, By girls who lisp th' Italian of the East?1801, John Collegins, “Literary Characteristics of The Most Distinguished Members of the Asiatic Society”, in The Asiatic Annual Register, page 114
    • Our first native servant, a boy called "Omah," came from Timor in the Gulnare, and I then heard spoken for the first time what is now as familiar to me as my mother tongue, the melodious Malayan language, the "Italian of the East," as some writers term it.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 128

Origin of Italian of the East

From the supposed similarities in pronunciation.

Questions about Italian of the East

What does Italian of the East mean?
Italian of the East means the Telugu language.
What part of speech is Italian of the East?
Italian of the East is a proper noun.

Words near Italian of the East in the dictionary

  1. Italian millet
  2. Italian millets
  3. Italian mix
  4. Italian oak
  5. Italian oaks
  6. Italian of the East
  7. Italian parsley
  8. Italian parsleys
  9. Italian paste
  10. Italian pastes
  11. Italian Peninsula

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Italian of the East (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: “Italian of the East.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/italian_of_the_east. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.