Word.ws English Dictionary

indaba

Syllables: in·da·ba/ɪnˈdɑːbə/US/ɪnˈdɑbə/

indaba noun: a tribal conference held by Nguni leaders.

Noun

indaba (plural indabas)

  1. (South Africa) A tribal conference held by Nguni leaders.
  2. (South Africa, broadly) Any conference, discussion, or meeting.
  3. (South Africa) Chiefly in one's own or someone's indaba: a concern, matter, or problem.
  4. (broadly, scouting) An international conference of Scout leaders.

Forms of indaba

pluralindabas

Origin of indaba

Borrowed from Zulu índaba (“affair, issue, matter; piece of news; story”), from ín- (class 9 noun prefix) + -daɓa (stem meaning ‘affair, matter’).

Questions about indaba

What does indaba mean?
Indaba means a tribal conference held by Nguni leaders.
What part of speech is indaba?
Indaba is a noun.
How do you pronounce indaba?
Indaba is pronounced /ɪnˈdɑːbə/ (UK).
What is the plural of indaba?
The plural of indaba is indabas.

Words near indaba in the dictionary

  1. IND
  2. Ind Est
  3. Ind Ests
  4. ind.
  5. Inda
  6. indaba
  7. indabas
  8. indacaterol
  9. indacene
  10. indacenes
  11. indaconitine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: indaba (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-indaba.wav.

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