Proa
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A sailing vessel found in the waters of Micronesia and Indonesia; it has a single, large outrigger and a triangular sail.
"1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter XXII, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt I noticed that on the sea were numerous fantastically shaped canoes—or rather boats—like Malay proas, or the canoes used by many of the South Sea islanders."
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"A proa or prau is a type of multihull sailing vessel."
Etymology
From Malay perau, a variant of perahu. In some forms via Portuguese parão or Dutch prauw; in some forms assimilated to prow.
Borrowed from Galician Proa and Portuguese Prôa; this surname is predominantly found in Mexico.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.