Pretoria

American

[pri-tawr-ee-uh, -tohr-] / prɪˈtɔr i ə, -ˈtoʊr- /

noun

a city in and the administrative capital of the Republic of South Africa, in the NE part: also the capital of Transvaal.

Pretoria British

/ prɪˈtɔːrɪə /

noun

Also called: Tshwane. a city in N South Africa, the administrative capital of South Africa; formerly capital of Transvaal province: two universities (1873, 1930); large steelworks. Pop: 525 384 (2001)

"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

Pretoria Cultural

Administrative capital of South Africa. (See also Cape Town.)

Example Sentences

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Pretoria

The Pretoria peace agreement ended the fighting and maintained an uneasy calm until late 2025, when fresh clashes between federal troops and Tigrayan forces erupted.

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

Two of its citizens have also petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate "repeated xenophobic attacks", a move Pretoria has dismissed as "opportunistic".

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

Cele admitted to MPs that he had known Matlala for a couple of months and had stayed at his rented penthouse in Pretoria on two occasions but denied receiving money from Matlala.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

That was the year apartheid fell, and a good part of the credit went to the broad international pressure on Pretoria.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026

This was patently false; they had brought me back to Pretoria for their own motives, which soon became clear.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

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