Word.ws English Dictionary

shemma

shemma noun: a traditional Ethiopian or Eritrean handwoven cotton cloth that holds cultural, social, and religious significance.

Noun

shemma (plural shemmas)

  1. A traditional Ethiopian or Eritrean handwoven cotton cloth that holds cultural, social, and religious significance.
    • From around the age of ten, they begin to be taught “important” things like holding a hand (of the corner of the cloth they cover their bodies with, then shemma) before the mouth and turn aside from people if they sneeze, …1995, Reidulf Knut Molvaer, Socialization and Social Control in Ethiopia (Äthiopistische Forschungen; 44), Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 77
    • The shemma is draped over the head and shoulders in a graceful fashion and sometimes held by the wearer over nose and mouth.2000, Ethiopian Costumes, Ethiopian Tourism Commission, page 11

Forms of shemma

pluralshemmas

Questions about shemma

What does shemma mean?
Shemma means a traditional Ethiopian or Eritrean handwoven cotton cloth that holds cultural, social, and religious significance.
What part of speech is shemma?
Shemma is a noun.
What is the plural of shemma?
The plural of shemma is shemmas.

Words near shemma in the dictionary

  1. Shemitish
  2. Shemitism
  3. Shemitisms
  4. shemittah
  5. shemittahs
  6. shemma
  7. shemmas
  8. shemmy
  9. shemmycuck
  10. shemozzle
  11. shemozzled

Source and license

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