Word.ws English Dictionary

toubab

/tu.bab/

toubab noun: a white person.

Noun

toubab (plural toubabs)

  1. (Africa, Central, West) A white person.
    • Jean-Baptiste was my only real white friend in the trench. He was the only Toubab who came to console me after the death of Mademba Diop.2018, David Diop, chapter 10, in Anna Moschovakis, transl., At Night All Blood Is Black, London: Pushkin
    Synonyms:
    white person

Synonyms of toubab

  • white person

Forms of toubab

pluraltoubabs

Origin of toubab

The most likely earliest derivation is from the Wolof word for Europe, "Tougal". In the same way that Wolof means the people of Jollof, Toubab means the people of Tougal.

Questions about toubab

What does toubab mean?
Toubab means a white person.
What part of speech is toubab?
Toubab is a noun.
How do you pronounce toubab?
Toubab is pronounced /tu.bab/.
What is the plural of toubab?
The plural of toubab is toubabs.

Words near toubab in the dictionary

  1. Touareg
  2. Touaregs
  3. touart
  4. touarts
  5. Touba
  6. toubab
  7. toubabs
  8. toubeleki
  9. toubelekis
  10. Toubkal
  11. Toubou

Source and license

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