Word.ws English Dictionary

akonting

akonting noun: a folk lute of the Jola people of West Africa; a banjo-like instrument with a skin-headed gourd body, two long melody strings, and one short drone string.

Noun

akonting (plural akontings)

  1. A folk lute of the Jola people of West Africa; a banjo-like instrument with a skin-headed gourd body, two long melody strings, and one short drone string.
    • But there’s no less spirit in the singing and thumb piano playing of Ruth Akello, an unheralded Ugandan, or in the banjo-like akonting playing of the Jatta family, in Gambia.2009 March 2, The New York Times, “New CDs”, in New York Times

Forms of akonting

pluralakontings
alternative formekonting

Origin of akonting

Borrowed from Jola-Fonyi.

Questions about akonting

What does akonting mean?
Akonting means a folk lute of the Jola people of West Africa; a banjo-like instrument with a skin-headed gourd body, two long melody strings, and one short drone string.
What part of speech is akonting?
Akonting is a noun.
What is the plural of akonting?
The plural of akonting is akontings.

Words near akonting in the dictionary

  1. Akolele
  2. Akolet
  3. Akoli
  4. akoluthic
  5. Akonibe
  6. akonting
  7. akontings
  8. Akopyan
  9. Akopyans
  10. akori
  11. akoria

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: akonting (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “akonting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/akonting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.