Word.ws English Dictionary

surau

surau noun: a small mosque or other Islamic assembly building in parts of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.

Noun

surau (plural suraus)

  1. A small mosque or other Islamic assembly building in parts of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.
    • He knew the sound so well he didn't bother to turn his head. It was even more familiar than the sound of the surau’s drum that beat five times a day.2015, Eka Kurniawan, translated by Labodalih Sembiring, Man Tiger, Verso, page 2
  2. (Malaysia) A small room in any public place where Muslims pray.
    • The men's surau can be found at the left of the clock store.

Synonyms of surau

Forms of surau

pluralsuraus

Origin of surau

From Malay surau, possibly from Sanskrit सुरौकस् (suraukas, “abode of the gods”).

Questions about surau

What does surau mean?
Surau means a small mosque or other Islamic assembly building in parts of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula.
What part of speech is surau?
Surau is a noun.
What is the plural of surau?
The plural of surau is suraus.

Words near surau in the dictionary

  1. surat
  2. Surat Thani
  3. Surath
  4. surats
  5. Suratt
  6. surau
  7. suraus
  8. surautomatism
  9. Surayt
  10. surazo
  11. surazos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: surau (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: “surau.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/surau. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.