Word.ws English Dictionary

serang

serang noun: a native Indian boatswain; a lascar captain.

Noun

serang (plural serangs)

  1. (India, historical) A native Indian boatswain; a lascar captain.
    • The discovery that the substance in his mouth was of vegetable origin came as no great reassurance to Zachary: once, when the serang spat a stream of blood-red juice over the rail, he noticed the water below coming alive with the thrashing of shark's fins.2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin, published 2015, page 14
    • The serang or his deputy could serve as a rebel leader or as a point of protest; there were even times when isolated Europeans joined the rebel cause.2020, Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves Across the South, William Collins, published 2021, page 161

Proper noun capitalized: Serang

Serang

  1. The provincial capital of Banten, Indonesia.
  2. (alternative) Alternative form of Seram (“island”).

Forms of serang

pluralserangs

Origin of serang

From Persian سرهنگ (sarhang, “commander”).

From Indonesian Serang.

Questions about serang

What does serang mean?
Serang means a native Indian boatswain; a lascar captain.
What part of speech is serang?
Serang can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of serang?
The plural of serang is serangs.

Words near serang in the dictionary

  1. Serampore
  2. Serampur
  3. Seran
  4. serandite
  5. serandites
  6. serang
  7. Serangoon
  8. serangs
  9. Serano
  10. Seranos
  11. serape

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: serang (page history and authors); Serang (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.

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