Word.ws English Dictionary

shamba

UK/ˈʃambə/

shamba noun: an area of cultivated ground; a plot of land, a small subsistence farm for growing crops and fruit-bearing trees, often including the dwelling of the farmer.

Noun

shamba (plural shambas)

  1. (Africa, East) An area of cultivated ground; a plot of land, a small subsistence farm for growing crops and fruit-bearing trees, often including the dwelling of the farmer.
    • To reach his new strip of shamba which lay the other side of Thabai, Mugo had to walk through the dusty village streets.1967, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat, EAEP, published 2008, page 4

Forms of shamba

pluralshambas

Origin of shamba

From Swahili shamba.

Words formed from shamba

Phrases with shamba

Questions about shamba

What does shamba mean?
Shamba means an area of cultivated ground; a plot of land, a small subsistence farm for growing crops and fruit-bearing trees, often including the dwelling of the farmer.
What part of speech is shamba?
Shamba is a noun.
How do you pronounce shamba?
Shamba is pronounced /ˈʃambə/ (UK).
What is the plural of shamba?
The plural of shamba is shambas.

Words near shamba in the dictionary

  1. shamata
  2. shamateur
  3. shamateurism
  4. shamateurs
  5. Shamator
  6. shamba
  7. shamba boy
  8. shamba boys
  9. Shambala
  10. Shamballa
  11. shambar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shamba (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.

Last updated:

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