Word.ws English Dictionary

umlungu

umlungu noun: a white person.

Noun

umlungu (plural umlungus or abelungu)

  1. (South Africa, derogatory, often) A white person.
    • No, the average Bantu always had a dilemma; live with the wild tribes and never know when some witchdoctor's tagati would strike him down; or live with the umlungus and respect his authority (and his sjambok).1992, Colin Bender, Makapan odyssey, page 166
    • The old man snorted and laughed, “Is your teacher an umlungu?”2013, Samuel Muggington, People of the Stones
    Synonyms:
    white person

Synonyms of umlungu

  • white person

Forms of umlungu

pluralumlungus
pluralabelungu

Origin of umlungu

Borrowed from Zulu uḿlungu.

Questions about umlungu

What does umlungu mean?
Umlungu means a white person.
What part of speech is umlungu?
Umlungu is a noun.
What is the plural of umlungu?
The plural of umlungu is umlungus.

Words near umlungu in the dictionary

  1. umlautlessness
  2. umlauts
  3. umlessness
  4. Umling
  5. UMLS
  6. umlungu
  7. umlungus
  8. umm
  9. Umm al Qaywayn
  10. Umm al Quwain
  11. Umm al-Quwain

Source and license

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