Cambodian

How to spell cambodian

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce cambodian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cambodian mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Cambodia, its people, language, or culture.
2. nounA person from Cambodia, or a native or inhabitant of Cambodia.

Cambodian in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves traditional cambodian cuisine alongside Thai dishes.

• noun

  As a proud cambodian, he often cooked dishes from his grandmother's recipes.

• adjective

  She studied cambodian history before her trip to Angkor Wat.

• noun

  Many a cambodian emigrated abroad during the difficult decades of the past century.

Where does cambodian come from?

Language of origin: Sanskrit

This word is the demonym formed from Cambodia, the name of the Southeast Asian nation, with the English suffix -an, which is added to place names to mean 'a person from' or 'relating to'. The country name itself reaches English through French Cambodge and Portuguese Camboja, which were European renderings of the local Khmer name Kampuchea. Behind that lies the Sanskrit term Kambuja, the name of an ancient people and the legendary ancestor figure Kambu, whose descendants were said to have founded the realm. The capital letter and the unusual sequence of vowels (a, o, i) are the parts most likely to trip a writer, since the spelling preserves the foreign place name rather than following ordinary English patterns. The form settled in English during the colonial era, when French Indochina brought the spelling Cambodge into wider Western use.

How the word is built

• Cambodi- (from Cambodia, the country name)
• -an (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to')