Word.ws English Dictionary

mzungu

UK/(ə)mˈzʊnɡuː/

mzungu noun: a white person.

Noun

mzungu (plural mzungus or wazungu)

  1. (Africa, East) A white person.
    • I have given my daughter to an mzungu, and he says he will make her like the wives of the white men.1888, Joseph Thomson, E. Harris-Smith, Ulu: an African romance: Volume 1
    • suspicion about an mzungu wanting a copy of the country's constitution2004, Dan McNickle, Teaching and Hunting in East Africa

Synonyms of mzungu

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of mzungu

pluralmzungus
pluralwazungu
alternative formmuzungu
alternative formumuzungu

Origin of mzungu

Borrowed from Swahili mzungu, from Common Bantu *mʊ̀díʊ́ngʊ̀.

Words formed from mzungu

Questions about mzungu

What does mzungu mean?
Mzungu means a white person.
What part of speech is mzungu?
Mzungu is a noun.
How do you pronounce mzungu?
Mzungu is pronounced /(ə)mˈzʊnɡuː/ (UK).
What is the plural of mzungu?
The plural of mzungu is mzungus.

Words near mzungu in the dictionary

  1. mzee
  2. mzees
  3. MZM
  4. MZS
  5. MZSs
  6. mzungu
  7. mzungu time
  8. mzungus
  9. Mzuzu
  10. Màasaw
  11. Mày

Source and license

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