Moluccas
/məˈlʌkəz/
Moluccas proper noun: an archipelago of Indonesia.
Proper noun
Moluccas
- An archipelago of Indonesia.
- Synonyms:
- Maluku, Malukus, Maluku Islands, Moluccan Islands, Spice Islands
Synonyms of Moluccas
Origin of Moluccas
From Maluku, thought to have been derived from the term used by Arab traders for the region, Arabic جَزِيرَات المَلِك (jazīrāt al-malik, literally “king islands”), from the word مَلِك (malik). However, since the name itself has been mentioned in a 14th-century Majapahit eulogy, Nagarakretagama, that predates the arrival of Islam in Maluku at the late fifteenth century, other sources claim that the name comes from a local language with the meaning "the head of a bull" or "the head of something large".
Questions about Moluccas
- What does Moluccas mean?
- Moluccas means an archipelago of Indonesia.
- What part of speech is Moluccas?
- Moluccas is a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce Moluccas?
- Moluccas is pronounced /məˈlʌkəz/.
Words near Moluccas in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Moluccas (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: “Moluccas.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/moluccas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
