Bantu
Americannoun
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Bantus,
plural
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Bantu
plural
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a member of any of several peoples forming a linguistically and in some respects culturally interrelated family in central and southern Africa.
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a grouping of more than 500 languages of central and southern Africa, as Kikuyu, Swahili, Tswana, and Zulu, all related within a subbranch of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Kordofanian family.
adjective
noun
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a group of languages of Africa, including most of the principal languages spoken from the equator to the Cape of Good Hope, but excluding the Khoisan family: now generally regarded as part of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo family
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taboo a Black speaker of a Bantu language
adjective
Usage
Use of the term Bantu is only acceptable outside South Africa and when talking about this group of languages and their speakers. To refer to African people or peoples, the terms Black and African are acceptable within South Africa
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of Bantu
C19: from Bantu Ba-ntu people
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The artist’s eponymous 2025 sculpture, crowned with an array of Bantu knots, ties the entire show together, joining materiality, traditional cultural identity, and the outward-looking nature of the exhibition in a single work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
These differences reflect the influence of indigenous languages - Nigeria has more than 500 languages which shape its cadence and intonation, while Kenya's Bantu, Nilotic and Cushitic mix give rise to its own accents.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2026
The New York Times reported that the thief wrote their message in Luganda, a Bantu language of Uganda.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2024
He said he was based in Nigeria and his email was written in Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda.
From New York Times ● May 28, 2024
Trading and marriage relationships were undoubtedly established between those Khoisan and the Bantu farmers, each occupying different adjacent habitats, just as Pygmy hunter-gatherers and Bantu farmers still do today in equatorial Africa.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
In the hands of migrating Bantus, iron technology was indispensable.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
Yet, in recent years, the Somali Bantus have made strides.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 4, 2022
In 2003, 61 Somali Bantus were resettled in Utica; the community has since grown to about 2,000.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2014
Apart from a possible hypothesis of a massive colonization by the Bantus, the other logical explanation of such data would be the erosion of fossil soils horizons, evidence of the leaching during past climates.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 30, 2012
Here the Bantus made a gesture of caution and carefully parted the grass ahead of them.
From The Blind Lion of the Congo by Elliott Whitney
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
