Word.ws English Dictionary

bonsella

bonsella noun: in a transaction, something extra on the side.

Noun

bonsella (plural bonsellas)

  1. (South Africa) In a transaction, something extra on the side.
    • A lekker dictionary containing all the bakgat South African words has hit the bookstores. The collection of about 1,500 local words is a bonsella published in the latest edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, "the ultimate authority on South African English".2002 September 9, Peroshni Govender, “Hau, my china, it's bakgat”, in Independent Online, archived from the original on 29 Mar 2018
  2. (South Africa) A tip or gratuity.
  3. (South Africa) A handout.
  4. (South Africa) A bribe.

Forms of bonsella

pluralbonsellas
alternative formbansela

Origin of bonsella

Borrowed from Afrikaans bonsela, from Xhosa bansela meaning "showing thanks with a gift", related to Zulu umbhanselo a "tip".

Questions about bonsella

What does bonsella mean?
Bonsella means in a transaction, something extra on the side.
What part of speech is bonsella?
Bonsella is a noun.
What is the plural of bonsella?
The plural of bonsella is bonsellas.

Words near bonsella in the dictionary

  1. bonsaiing
  2. bonsais
  3. Bonsall
  4. Bonsalls
  5. bonseki
  6. bonsella
  7. bonsellas
  8. bonser
  9. Bonsers
  10. Bonshaw
  11. bonsho

Source and license

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