Have you learned a lot of new Indonesian words lately? Perhaps you have learned about unique Indonesian words, as well as Indonesian words for different categories, like animals, fruit, transport, and season.
There are also some articles containing vocabulary starting with different initials, like Indonesian words starting with G, Indonesian words starting with E, Indonesian words starting with J, R and U. These letters are so common in Indonesian language that for each letter you can find over 100 vocabularies.
But how about Indonesian words starting with ‘Z’?
The letter Z is not a commonly used letter, even in the English language. Can you think of some English words starting with Z? Zoo, zealous, zipper, there’s not a lot of them. Well, same thing applies to Indonesian language, there are only a few words and they are much less than those from other letters ,but hey, there are still some words you can learn! They aren’t really common everyday words, but it’s good to get familiar with them. Here are they!
- zaman – era (zuh-mun)
Example: Guci itu berasal dari zaman kuno (That vase came from the ancient era)
Note: This spelling is now modernized into ‘jaman’, so you’re less likely to find this old spelling, unless perhaps in older literature.
- zat – substance (zutt)
Example: Limbah yang dibuang ke sungai mengandung banyak zat beracun (The wastewater dumped into the river contains many toxic substances)
Note: This word is more scientific and mostly used in the fields of physics, chemistry, or biology to describe quite some substances. You’ll probably see them in news or science books and information books. Other examples of the uses are zat gizi (nutrients), zat organik (organic substances), zat anorganik (inorganic substances), and zat sisa (waste substance). Again, not really likely to encounter them in daily conversations.
- zebra – zebra (zeh-bruh)
Example: Hewan kesukaan anak saya adalah zebra (My son’s favorite animal is zebra)
Note: This is one example of an Indonesian animal word which is directly adapted from its original English word. We also have other animal words as such, for example, gorilla and kiwi (bird).
- zinah – adultery (zee-nuh)
Example: Ia dituduh melakukan perzinahan (He was accused for commiting adultery)
Note: This is also a more formal Indonesian word. Usually, it is used together with affixes, like in the example above, where the affix per…an is used. Another form of the usage is with the prefix ber (Ber + zinah = berzinah), this changes the word into a verb form instead of a noun form (perzinahan).
- zirah – armor (zee-ruh)
Example: Baju zirah itu sangat berat (That armor was very heavy)
- zona – zone (zo-nuh)
Example: Kami memasuki zona 3-in-1 untuk menuju pusat kota (We entered the 3-in-1 zone to reach the city centre)
Thus, that’s the list of Indonesian words starting with ‘Z.’ May you learn Indonesian words better with us!