Word.ws English Dictionary

Boko Haram

Boko Haram proper noun: an Islamist jihadist militant group based in Nigeria but active in adjoining Northwest African countries.

Proper noun

Boko Haram

  1. An Islamist jihadist militant group based in Nigeria but active in adjoining Northwest African countries.
    • Security officials say such a move makes it easy for Boko Haram to infiltrate Cameroon and gather vital security information.2015 March 3, Ngala Killian Chimtom, “Cameroon in for long fight as its youth join Boko Haram”, in CNN

Origin of Boko Haram

From Hausa boko (“fake, often said of Western education”) + haram (“forbidden”), from Arabic حَرَام (ḥarām). Literally, “Western education is forbidden”.

Questions about Boko Haram

What does Boko Haram mean?
Boko Haram means an Islamist jihadist militant group based in Nigeria but active in adjoining Northwest African countries.
What part of speech is Boko Haram?
Boko Haram is a proper noun.

Words near Boko Haram in the dictionary

  1. Boklaoan
  2. bokmakierie
  3. bokmakieries
  4. Bokmål
  5. boko
  6. Boko Haram
  7. Bokod
  8. bokola
  9. bokono
  10. bokonon
  11. Bokononism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Boko Haram (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: “Boko Haram.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boko_haram. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.