Kikuyu

American  

[ki-koo-yoo] / kɪˈku yu /

noun

plural

Kikuyus,

plural

Kikuyu

1. a member of an Indigenous people of Kenya having an agricultural economy and notable as being the originators of the Mau Mau.

2. the language of the Kikuyu, a Bantu language.

3. Also called kikuyu grass.  Usually kikuyu a grass, Pennisetum clandestinum, native to southern Africa, sometimes used in warm climates for lawns or as pasturage.

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Kikuyu British  

/ kɪˈkuːjuː /

noun

1. a member of a Negroid people of E Africa, living chiefly in Kenya on the high foothills around Mount Kenya

2. the language of this people, belonging to the Bantu group of the Niger-Congo family

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Example Sentences

"Hold On to Me" from Cyprus traces the efforts of an 11-year-old tracking down her estranged father, while documentary "Kikuyu Land" from Kenya examines how powerful outside forces use local corruption to dispossess a people.

From Barron's • Jan. 22, 2026

So, angry about corruption and police excesses, she says she joined friends protesting in Kikuyu, a lush town on the outskirts of the capital.

From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 9, 2025

“The Kikuyu grass by the side of the road is crying silver tears the color of remembered light; Nairobi is a smoggy haze in the distance,” he writes in “Discovering Home.”

From New York Times • May 29, 2023

On Kikuyu Road in Nairobi, Mary Wangari, 35, said that she stopped deep-frying her potatoes for a minute when she heard the ruling.

From Washington Post • Sep. 5, 2022

He knew perhaps more than any white man about the Kikuyu, too, since his missionary father had allowed him to grow up almost as part of the tribe.

From "My Life with the Chimpanzees" by Jane Goodall