Bantu

[ ban-too ]

noun,plural Ban·tus, (especially collectively) Ban·tu.
  1. a member of any of several peoples forming a linguistically and in some respects culturally interrelated family in central and southern Africa.

  2. 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
  1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Bantu or the Bantu peoples.

Other words from Bantu

  • non-Bantu, noun, adjective

Words Nearby Bantu

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use Bantu in a sentence

  • In the Bantu languages, the principle of concord works very much as in Chinook.

    Language | Edward Sapir

British Dictionary definitions for Bantu

Bantu

/ (ˈbɑːntʊ, ˈbæntuː, bænˈtuː) /


noun
  1. 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

  2. plural -tu or -tus Southern African taboo a Black speaker of a Bantu language

adjective
  1. denoting, relating to, or belonging to this group of peoples or to any of their languages

Origin of Bantu

1
C19: from Bantu Ba-ntu people

usage For Bantu

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

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012