The word Barong is a coined word that comes from the Filipino word "baro" meaning outfit. Similar to the Malaysian Baju which translates to Dress. The term "Barong Tagalog" literally means "Tagalog dress" in Filipino. The term was originally used to describe what people, both men and women, typically wore in the Tagalog region during the Spanish era. In time, the term caught on with the shirt alone, and the other styles of dresses got their own names (e.g. maria clara, baro't saya, magsasaka, kamisa de chino, and terno). The term Barong Tagalog has been for so long been shortened by native Filipino speakers into "Barong". Grammatically, Barong is not a word that can stand alone. It has a suffix "-ng" which implies that a word that an adjective, or a word that modifies it must directly follow. The root word of barong is "baro".