datu

American  

[dah-too] / ˈdɑ tu /

noun

datu, plural datus plural

1. (in the Philippines) a Native chief.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• datu
  plural
• datus
  plural

Etymology

Origin of datu

First recorded in 1925–30; from Tagalog datu, dato “landowner, head of a clan or tribe”; akin to dato ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

datu datus

He says the chests were given to him by a datu, or tribal chief.

From BusinessWeek ● Jan. 18, 2012

Therefore they must wait until every datu from the farthest Moro island had arrived.

From Time Magazine Archive

Under him the tribe became strong and all the other datu feared him.

From The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition by Cole, Fay-Cooper

However, such an offering at this time did not relieve the datu from the obligation of making the regular sacrifice.

From The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition by Cole, Fay-Cooper

The claims of leadership over all the Bagobo had never been relinquished, but the actual power of the datu outside his own district amounted to little.

From The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition by Cole, Fay-Cooper

On the same day that the National Assembly met in Manila the datus assembled at Jolo, determined to make Rajamuda Sultan.

From Time Magazine Archive

Many Moro datus, maharajahs, panglimas and imams retired to their secret strongholds to prepare for the struggle.

From Time Magazine Archive

The whole power, within the last thirty years, has been usurped by one or two datus, who now have monopolized the little foreign trade that comes to these islands.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XLIII, 1670-1700 by Various

This consists of about twenty chiefs, either datus, or their next in rank, called orangs,40 who are governors of towns or detached provinces.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XLIII, 1670-1700 by Various

Before the Spanish occupation there were in the Philippines many petty kingdoms headed by native princes known as datus.

From Filipino Popular Tales by Fansler, Dean Spruill