English Explanatory Dictionary

Swahili

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. An agglutinative language of the Bantu branch widely spoken in East Africa. Born in its modern form from the hybridization of the Arabic and Bantu cultures, it was the language of the traders in East Africa, and spread along the routes of trade.
noun
  1. A member of various ethnic groups — mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab and Comorian — inhabiting the Swahili coast.

Pronunciation

/swəˈhiːli/ /swɑˈhili/ /swəˈhili/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Swahili.wav

Word forms

Swahili Swahilis

Etymology

Borrowed from Swahili Mswahili / Kiswahili, from Arabic سَوَاحِلِيّ (sawāḥiliyy, “(people) of the coasts”), from سَوَاحِل (sawāḥil, “coasts”), broken plural of سَاحِل (sāḥil, “coast”).

Synonyms

Kiswahili Waswahili

Related words

Sahel Wiktionary’s coverage of Swahili terms

Derived words

Afrihili Settler Swahili Sheng Swahilian Swahililand Swahilization Swahilize
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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