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INDONESIAN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sayang.

love (a profound and caring affection towards someone)

6 characters1 syllables approx.Bahasa Indonesia language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsajaŋ/Standard-Indonesian[ˈsa.jaŋ]Standard-Indonesian
  1. love (a profound and caring affection towards someone)

  2. an affectionate term of address: darling

  3. a term of endearment used to refer to or address one's girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse: baby

Where this word comes from

From Malay sayang (“love; it were a pity; alas that”), from either: * Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *sayaŋ (“too bad! it’s a pity! what a shame!”); or * New/Middle Indo-Aryan (such as Punjabi [script needed] (sāīyā̃, “master”) and Nepali सैयाँ (saiyā̃, “master”)), from Sanskrit स्वामी (svāmī), singular nominative of स्वामिन् (svāmín). Therefore, doublet of suami.

intj/ˈsajaŋ/Standard-Indonesian[ˈsa.jaŋ]Standard-Indonesian
  1. alas, what a pity, what a shame, what a waste

    Sayang sekali!
Where this word comes from

From Malay sayang (“love; it were a pity; alas that”), from either: * Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *sayaŋ (“too bad! it’s a pity! what a shame!”); or * New/Middle Indo-Aryan (such as Punjabi [script needed] (sāīyā̃, “master”) and Nepali सैयाँ (saiyā̃, “master”)), from Sanskrit स्वामी (svāmī), singular nominative of स्वामिन् (svāmín). Therefore, doublet of suami.

verb/ˈsajaŋ/Standard-Indonesian[ˈsa.jaŋ]Standard-Indonesian
  1. to love

Where this word comes from

From Malay sayang (“love; it were a pity; alas that”), from either: * Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *sayaŋ (“too bad! it’s a pity! what a shame!”); or * New/Middle Indo-Aryan (such as Punjabi [script needed] (sāīyā̃, “master”) and Nepali सैयाँ (saiyā̃, “master”)), from Sanskrit स्वामी (svāmī), singular nominative of स्वामिन् (svāmín). Therefore, doublet of suami.

adj/ˈsajaŋ/Standard-Indonesian[ˈsa.jaŋ]Standard-Indonesian
  1. waste, wasteful

    predicative
Where this word comes from

From Malay sayang (“love; it were a pity; alas that”), from either: * Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *sayaŋ (“too bad! it’s a pity! what a shame!”); or * New/Middle Indo-Aryan (such as Punjabi [script needed] (sāīyā̃, “master”) and Nepali सैयाँ (saiyā̃, “master”)), from Sanskrit स्वामी (svāmī), singular nominative of स्वामिन् (svāmín). Therefore, doublet of suami.

noun/ˈsajaŋ/Standard-Indonesian[ˈsa.jaŋ]Standard-Indonesian
  1. coppersmith (person)

Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Javanese ꦱꦪꦁ (sayang, “coppersmith”), from Old Javanese sayaṅ (“coppersmith”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.