Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

Kongo

American  
[kong-goh] / ˈkɒŋ goʊ /

noun

  • Kongos,
    plural
  • Kongo
    plural
  1. a member of an Indigenous people living in west-central Africa along the lower course of the Congo River.

  2. Also called Kikongo.  the Bantu language of the Kongo people, used as a lingua franca in the lower Congo River basin.


Kongo British  
/ ˈkɒŋɡəʊ /

noun

  1. a member of a Negroid people of Africa living in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaïre), Congo Brazzaville, and Angola

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

"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

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

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.

See Examples For:

Last Fourth of July, the company’s system deterred more than 20,000 people in the U.S. from booking an entire home listing on Airbnb, according to company spokesperson Ruthie Kongo.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 1, 2026

"Plastic pollution has reached alarming levels," said Vincent Kunda, head of Kongo River, an NGO which raises awareness of the scourge.

From Barron's May 20, 2026

This last tradition is possibly derived from enslaved Yoruba and Kongo people living in Texas at the time, for whom the color red represents spiritual power, culinary historian Michael Twitty writes in his blog Afroculinaria.

From Seattle Times Jun. 17, 2023

Nzinga found allies in the kingdom of Kongo.

From Textbooks Dec. 14, 2022

Impressed as they were with the Kingdom of Kongo, the Europeans were dismayed to find no commodity agriculture here.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Yet as much as the Kongos value tradition, their firm has survived by being flexible.

From Time Magazine Archive

The men said they must consider the matter, and went away to drink water, as the Kongos say.

From An African Adventure by Isaac Frederick Marcosson

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training