Word.ws English Dictionary

kujichagulia

/ˌku.d͡ʒiˈt͡ʃɑ.ɡuˌli.ə/

kujichagulia noun: self-determination (in the context of African-American culture).

Noun

kujichagulia (uncountable)

  1. self-determination (in the context of African-American culture)
    • On Tuesday night at the Club Serene in Brooklyn, Mayor Koch proclaimed Kwanzaa Week in New York. Then he told the crowd of about 400 that he had practiced his Swahili in order to pronounce correctly such exotic-sounding words as kujichagulia (self-determination), ujamaa (cooperative economics) and...1983 December 30, Ron Alexander, “The Evening Hours”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Jan 2022, page B7
    • On the second day of Kwanzaa, we practice Kujichagulia, the principle of self-determination. This principle highlights for the NC State community what it means to define, name, create and speak for ourselves.2020 November 5, North Carolina State University Calendar

Origin of kujichagulia

Borrowed from Swahili kujichagulia (“self-determination”).

Questions about kujichagulia

What does kujichagulia mean?
Kujichagulia means self-determination (in the context of African-American culture).
What part of speech is kujichagulia?
Kujichagulia is a noun.
How do you pronounce kujichagulia?
Kujichagulia is pronounced /ˌku.d͡ʒiˈt͡ʃɑ.ɡuˌli.ə/.

Words near kujichagulia in the dictionary

  1. kujawiak
  2. kujawiaks
  3. Kujawski
  4. Kujawskis
  5. Kuji
  6. kujichagulia
  7. Kuk
  8. kukang
  9. kukangs
  10. Kukatja
  11. Kukeng

Source and license

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