Ife

American

[ee-fey] / ˈi feɪ /

noun

a town in SW Nigeria.
a male or female given name: from a Yoruba word meaning “love.”

Ife British

/ ˈiːfɪ /

noun

a town in W central Nigeria: one of the largest and oldest Yoruba towns; university (1961); centre of the cocoa trade. Pop: 229 000 (2005 est)

"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

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

Ife

One of the people who have benefited from the project is 62-year-old Ife, from Stockwell.

From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2025

Several characters, such as Benjamin Clementine’s air-raid warden Ife, are based on real figures.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2024

He established Nigeria’s first museums in Esie in 1945, Jos in 1952 and Ife in 1955.

From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2024

The film captures the artistic process behind the art exhibit, first displayed in November 2022, featuring human head-sized sculptures inspired by ancient Nigerian Ife terracotta heads.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2024

He came from a home where kindness was a way of Ife.

From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023