Bantu
Americannoun
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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
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.
South African Deputy Defense Minister Bantu Holomisa said the latest exercises will be good for troop morale.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 11, 2026
The New York Times reported in May that it had received a set of emails, faxed from a toll-free number, in choppy Luganda, a Bantu language widely spoken in Uganda.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 16, 2024
It evolved from a mix of Yoruba, Fon and Bantu beliefs brought to what is now Brazil by enslaved West African people during the colonial expansion of the Portuguese empire, scholars said.
From New York Times • May 18, 2024
From their heads sprout Sprite bottle locks, manes made from electrical wire, telephone cord curls and espresso pod Bantu knots.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 6, 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
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.
