Word.ws English Dictionary

machinga

/məˈt͡ʃɪŋɡə/

machinga noun: a street vendor; a hawker.

Noun

machinga (countable and uncountable, plural machingas)

  1. (Tanzania) A street vendor; a hawker.
    • For the past few years, machingas have been left to occupy major markets across the country despite complaints from registered traders. In most extreme circumstances, a machinga would lay out assorted merchandise infront^([sic]) of a licensed trader’s shop.2021 June 18, Louis Kalumbia, “Why the petty traders issue can’t be ignored”, in The Citizen Tanzania, archived from the original on 04 Aug 2021
    • After buying, one has to move from one place to another persuading prospective buyers to take your goods. In some places, the machingas are unwanted. We have many places with the words, ‘hawkers are not allowed in.” On a good day a machinga can sell most of his or her ware, and on a bad day, no...2021 October 24, Saumu Jumanne, “The plight of ‘machingas’, let’s show some love”, in The Citizen Tanzania, archived from the original on 24 Oct 2021

Examples of machinga in a sentence

  • In some places, the machingas are unwanted.2021 October 24, Saumu Jumanne, “The plight of ‘machingas’, let’s show some love”, in The Citizen Tanzania, archived from the original on...
  • “The government has lost a lot of revenue from allowing the machinga to do business anywhere,” said Walter Nguma, a Dar es Salaam-based economist and analyst.2022 April 6, Priya Sippy, “Tanzania: Displaced petty traders struggle with new market rules”, in Al Jazeera English, archived from the...

Forms of machinga

pluralmachingas

Origin of machinga

From Swahili Machinga, a small ethnic group living on the southern Indian Ocean coast of Tanzania, whose members are known to work in the cities as itinerant traders.

Questions about machinga

What does machinga mean?
Machinga means a street vendor; a hawker.
How do you use machinga in a sentence?
In some places, the machingas are unwanted.
What part of speech is machinga?
Machinga is a noun.
How do you pronounce machinga?
Machinga is pronounced /məˈt͡ʃɪŋɡə/.
What is the plural of machinga?
The plural of machinga is machingas.

Words near machinga in the dictionary

  1. machiners
  2. machinery
  3. machines
  4. machines of government
  5. machines that go "ping"
  6. machinga
  7. machingas
  8. machinic
  9. machinification
  10. machinified
  11. machinifies

Source and license

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