football

en-noun

football (countable and uncountable, plural footballs)

footballs (plural)
foot-ball (alternative dated)
foot ball (alternative dated)

⇒ Azerbaijani: futbol

desc

→ Bengali: ফুটবল (phuṭbol) (transliteration)

→ Bulgarian: фу́тбол (fútbol)

→ Czech: fotbal

desctree

→ Dutch: voetbal (calque)
→ Caribbean Hindustani: futbál khele

→ French: football

desc

→ Georgian: ფეხბურთი (pexburti) (calque)

→ German: Football

desctree

→ German: Fußball, Fussball (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, sometimes Luxembourg, South Tyrol) (calque)
→ English: foosball
⇒? Luxembourgish: Foussball

desc

→ Greek: ποδόσφαιρο (podósfairo) (calque)

→ Hebrew: כדורגל (calque)

→ Hindustani:

Hindi: फ़ुटबॉल (fuṭbŏl)

→ Hungarian: futball

→ Japanese: フットボール (futtobōru)

→ Korean: 풋볼 (putbol)

→ Latvian: futbols

→ Latvian: kājbumba (calque)

→ Lithuanian: fùtbolas

→ Macedonian: фу́дбал (fúdbal)

→ Maori: whutupōro

→ Maltese: futbol

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: fotball (calque)

desctree

→ Ottoman Turkish: فوتبول
Turkish: futbol

→ Polish: futbol

→ Polish: piłka nożna (calque)

→ Portuguese: futebol

→ Romanian: fotbal

→ Russian: футбо́л (futból)
→ Armenian: ֆուտբոլ (futbol)
→ Kazakh: футбол (futbol)

⇒ Serbo-Croatian:

Cyrillic script: фу̏дба̄л

Latin script: fȕdbāl

→ Spanish: balompié (calque)

→ Spanish: fútbol, futbol (Mexico), fúbol
→ Guaraní: húvol
→? Tagalog: putbol

→ Swedish: fotboll (calque)
⇒ Finnish: futis

→ Thai: ฟุตบอล (fút-bɔn)

⇒ Tok Pisin: soka

⇒ Ukrainian: футбо́л (futból)

[ˈfʊʔt̚bɔːl]

[ˈfʊʔtʰbɔːl]

[ˈfʷʊʔt̚bɑɫ]

From Middle English fotbal, footbal, equivalent to foot + ball, which may refer to the act of kicking a ball with the feet or to the fact the game was played on foot (as opposed to on horseback or with players in fixed positions). The name for the briefcase is a play on “dropkick”, the code name of an early version of the nuclear war plan.

ավստրալական ֆուտբոլ

game in Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia

ball

in all varieties of English and in all games called "football"

Each team scored three goals when they played football.

Association football
association football

(UK, Africa, Caribbean, South Asia, uncountable) Association football, also called soccer: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball.


donger

[…] And I had a lad in this morning with the most enormous donger.

1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 18:

My donger gets sucked right up inside this bloody hose. Hell it was painful. / ‘Christ almighty,’ Sandy said. ‘Yer right. She′s a powerful pump alright.’

2011, Bill Marsh, The ABC Book of Great Aussie Stories: For Young People:

(Africa, Australia, British, informal) The penis.


pula

From Tswana pula, Northern Sotho pula, and Sotho pula (“rain”), all from Proto-Bantu *mbúdà.

Given under my hand and the Public Seal at Gaborone this 31st day of March, 2020. / PULA!

2020 March 31, Government of Botswana, “State of Public Emergency — S.I. No. 59 of 2020”, in Republic of Botswana Government Gazette Extraordinary, page C213:

(Southern Africa) Rain, used as an expression of greeting or good luck.


buck

From Middle English bukke, bucke, buc, from Old English buc, bucc, bucca (“he-goat, stag”), from Proto-West Germanic *bukk, *bukkō, from Proto-Germanic *bukkaz, *bukkô (“buck”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuǵ- (“ram”). Doublet of puck (billy goat).
Currency-related senses hail from American English, a clipping of buckskin as a unit of trade among Indians and Europeans in frontier days (attested from 1748).
The idea of rigidly standing implements is instilled by Dutch bok (“sawhorse”) as in zaagbok (“sawbuck”).
The sense of an object indicating someone’s turn then occurred in American English, possibly originating from the game poker, where a knife (typically with a hilt made from a stag horn) was used as a place-marker to signify whose turn it was to deal. The place-marker was commonly referred to as a buck, which reinforced the term “pass the buck” used in poker, and eventually a silver dollar was used in place of a knife, which also led to a dollar being referred to as a buck.

There are all kinds of game in the valley, and you are unlucky if you do not see a giraffe or an ostrich, or at least a herd of buck.

1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, pages 265-266:

(Africa) An antelope of either sex; compare with Afrikaans bok.


auntie

Tok Pisin: anti

Torres Strait Creole: anti

→ Burmese: အန်တီ (anti)

⇒ Chinese: 安娣 (āndī)

→ Pennsylvania German: Aendi

→ Scottish Gaelic: antaidh

→ Yoruba: àǹtí

(Asia, Africa) Term of familiarity or respect for a middle-aged or elderly woman.


avail

en-verb

avail (third-person singular simple present avails, present participle availing, simple past and past participle availed)

avails (present singular third-person)
availing (participle present)
availed (participle past)
availed (past)

From Middle English availen (“to be of use”), from Old French a (“to”) + vail from valoir (“to be worth”), from Latin valere (“to be worthy, strong”).

You can avail discounts on food.

With this initiative, Valucard becomes an open system that is not limited to point of sale (POS) transactions, but now avails cash to its holders in various locations nationwide.

2004 November 16, Nik Ogbulie, “Decongesting the Banking Floors”, in This Day, archived from the original on 2009-01-22:

Over 85.3% of all persons who have adopted this method of contraception availed this service from government facilities.

2014, Shilpa Vishwas Date, Jyoti Rokade, Vidya Mule, Shreedher Dandapannavar, “Female sterilization failure: Review over a decade and its clinicopathological correlation”, in International Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research, number 4(2), →DOI, pages 81–85:

(India, Africa, elsewhere proscribed) To provide; to make available; to use or take advantage of (an opportunity or available resource).


palaver

en-noun

palaver (countable and uncountable, plural palavers)

→ Danish: palaver

→ Finnish: palaveri

→ German: Palaver

→ Hungarian: paláver

→ Swedish: palaver

Originally nautical slang, from Portuguese palavra (“word”), from Late Latin parabola (“parable, speech”). The term's use (especially in Africa) mimics the evolution of the word moot. As such, for sense development, see moot. Doublet of parable, parole, and parabola.

doublet

Here we remained four days, on account of a palaver which was held on the following occasion.

1799, Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa:


boozer

From booze + -er (agent noun suffix) or (pub) + -er (relational noun suffix).

2010 June 8, Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard), page 2,
Mr. Mututho: Mr. Speaker, Sir, the Assistant Minister should assure the people of Vihiga that they will get a water boozer because the sick people are not party to this complication. Could he assure the people that he can send a boozer in his capacity even if he cannot supply power or a standby generator, so that they can have a small well?

(Africa) A vehicle equipped with tanks for supplying water to remote locations.


lorry

lorries (plural)
larry (alternative)
lorrie (alternative)

→ Central Dusun: luri

→ Chichewa: lore

→ Hausa: lori

→ Iban: lori

→ Juba Arabic: lori

→ Malay: lori (“heavy truck”)

→ Tausug: lūri

→ Chinese: 羅里 (luólǐ), 羅厘 /罗厘 (luólí)

→ Chichewa: lore

→ Farefare: loore

→ German: Lore

→ Irish: leoraí

→ Malay: lori

→ Moore: lore

→ Scottish Gaelic: làraidh

→ Swahili: lori

→ Telugu: లారీ (lārī)

→ Welsh: lorri, lori

→ Zulu: iloli

Uncertain; perhaps from dialectal English lurry (“to lug or pull about, drag”), or from the forename Laurie. First attested in early to middle 19th century.

cog

But whenever one of the motor-trucks lumbering by bore a big U.S. on its rear panel Troy pushed his light ambulance ahead and skimmed past, just for the joy of seeing the fresh young heads rising pyramid-wise about the sides of the lorry, hearing the snatches of familiar songs—"Hail, hail, the gang's all here!" and "We won't come back till it's over over here!"—and shouting back in reply to a stentorian "Hi, kid, beat it!", "Bet your life I will, old man!"

1918, Edith Wharton, chapter IX, in The Marne, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, pages 87–88:

The railway is still vital to Jordan's export trade, but in spite of the poor quality of the road, diesel lorries are gradually robbing it of freight traffic, and anyone who can afford to fly does so rather than face the long desert journey by rail.

1956 March, R. C. Blaker, “The Hedjaz Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 167:

The most frequent age for starting in the actual occupation of lorry driving is 17 years. Trampers tend to start later, the mode amongst them being 19 years. The mean average age for beginning in lorry driving in the sample is between 21 and 23 years. The mean average number of years spent in lorry driving varies according to the type of driver.

1968, Peter G. Hollowell, “The Lorry Driver’s Career”, in The Lorry Driver (The International Library of Sociology; 154), London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York, N.Y.: Humanities Press, →OCLC; republished Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 1998 (2007 printing), →ISBN, page 61:

Until the main road from Hatfield to Hertford was diverted a few years ago, heavy lorries trundling through the village sometimes knocked chunks off corner buildings, but now the village has regained much of its former tranquillity.

1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 224, about Hertingfordbury:

Our journey through the streets of Singapore awoke strange emotions. Very little of the structural damage seemed to have been repaired beyond make-shift patchwork. The streets had a dingy and forlorn look. We arrived outside the British American Tobacco building and had our first experience of the shouting and hustlings that accompanied all Japanese supervision of our movements. We were shouted at to get out of the lorry with our baggage and make out way into the building.

1987, Richard Pool, “Prisoner of War”, in Course for Disaster: From Scapa Flow to the River Kwai, London: Leo Cooper, Heinemann, →ISBN, page 164:

The plantain lorry caught up with them in a blind curve. Jeff caught a glimpse of the driver's face in the mirror as he fought to swing the old truck out around the car. At that moment Jeff heard the sound of the horn of a vehicle coming up the road. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the old lorry beside him; its driver desperately trying to avoid the passenger lorry coming up the scarp.

2003, John C. Kennedy, “The Child”, in Last Lorry to Mbordo: Misadventures in Nation Building: A Novel, Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 176:

At the platform in Pathankot, they must have overheard me asking the porter handling my luggage that I wanted to go to the lorry stand for Kashmir. [...] There were no buses then, some primitive contraptions called lorries. A far cry from the spacious and comfortable buses of the present day. They were not only rudimentary and crude, they also travelled very slow.

2005, Nagindra Mohan Kachroo, “Nostalgic Home Fires”, in Moments of Melancholy: (A Basket of Short Stories), New Delhi: S. B. Nangia, A. P. H. Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, page 129:

I know I swing me Volvo all around you market square. I know you think that lorry drivers, we just don't care. But the streets are so narrow, built so many years ago. They were built for horses' carts, not juggernauts you know.

2019, “I love my juggernaut”, in The Pothole Song Album, performed by Richie Kavanagh:

There was also the influx of a third of a million road lorries, sold at giveaway prices after their war roles ceased and used by competing one-man businesses to skim off sundry agricultural freight.

2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 51:

(British, Ireland, South Asia, Africa) A large and heavy motor vehicle designed to carry goods or soldiers; a truck


Darlington

/ˈdɑːlɪŋtən/

-ɑː(ɹ)lɪŋtən

From Middle English Dearnington, Derlinton, from Old English Dēornōþingtūn, supposedly “the settlement of Dēornōþ's people”, from an unclear root + -ing + tūn. Compare Old English dīerling. The transistor configuration is named for its inventor, Sidney Darlington.

(rare, chiefly Africa) A male given name transferred from the surname.


parastatal

(chiefly Africa, Israel) A company, agency, or intergovernmental organization that possesses political clout and is separate from the government, but whose activities serve the state, either directly or indirectly.


shifta

Borrowed from Swahili shifta, from Amharic ሽፍታ (šəfta).


severally

It tells them that those rules can be broken; and certainly they will break them, not once or twice but severally.

2012 November 12, Business Daily, Kenya, archived from the original on 2012-11-18:

It was at the point of confronting Alaba, who had been warned severally along with other tenants, that Ogunyemi met her demise.


rock pigeon

Columba guinea
Columba guinea#Translingual

(Africa) A speckled pigeon or African rock pigeon (Columba guinea).


outgrowing

en-noun

outgrowing (countable and uncountable, plural outgrowings)

(chiefly Africa) The supply and purchase arrangement engaged in by an outgrower.


tigerfish

tigerfish (plural tigerfishes or tigerfish)

Any of a number of species of fish with stripes on their bodies, otherwise fearsome appearance, or aggressive predatory behavior, including, among others:

(Africa) Any fish in the genus Hydrocynus of characins.


inyanga

(Africa) In Zulu communities, a traditional doctor or healer


chargee

But the chargee will be entitled to a proportionate abatement of the price of the animal if the carcass is later sold.

1954, Taslim Olawale Elias, Groundwork of Nigerian Law, page 237:

Among the Yorubas, the first breed belongs to the owner of the animal, the next to the chargee, the third to the owner, and so on.

1970, E. Cotran, N. N. Rubin, Readings in African Law, Volume 1, page 222:

In the latter case the potential chargee made a direct approach to his relative, friend or neighbour who possessed livestock (goats, for instance) or was capable of procuring some, indicating his interest in being a chargee for his animal.

1984, Odu: A Journal of West African Studies - Issues 25-31, page 97:

(law, Africa) One who is given charge of caring for another's animal or herd.


honeysucker

honeysuckers (plural)
honey-sucker (alternative)

There were also many palms, some of them more than one hundred feet high, and the largest and most beautiful tree ferns that I ever saw, about which hung clouds of jewelled honeysuckers and great-winged butterflies.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:


headpan

headpans (plural)
head pan (alternative)
head-pan (alternative)

From Middle English heed panne, heved pan, from Old English hēafodpanne (“skull”), from Proto-West Germanic *haubudapannā, equivalent to head + pan. Cognate with Middle Low German hö̂vetpanne (“head, skull”).

cog

(chiefly in Africa) A round bowl-like container, used in construction work and usually carried on one's head.


sapeur

For these sapeurs, the essential thing was to dress elegantly, with name-brand clothes made by famous designers if possible.

2002, Frank Tenaille, translated by Steven Toussaint and Hope Sandrine, Music Is the Weapon of the Future: Fifty Years of African Popular Music, Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, →ISBN, page 182:

Since the 1920s, the sapeurs of the Congo have been making sartorial statements on the streets of Brazzaville and Kinshasa.

2020 July 27, Trey Kay, “Congolese dandies: Meet the stylish men and women of Brazzaville”, in The Guardian, London: The Guardian Media Group, retrieved 2020-10-01:

(Africa) A member of the social movement known as La Sape, who dress as dandies and put great emphasis on style and physical appearance.


shauri

Strangers were few before they saw us, and we had shauri after shauri with them.

1876, Henry Morton Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, volume 2, page 78:

The poor guide had been sitting through the shauri open-eyed and open-mouthed, intensely puzzled by the whole performance.

1896, John Walter Gregory, The Great Rift Valley, page 129:

Although we have a lot of variety through the local folks, who constantly refresh us with new shauris, they would likely not interest you.

30 October 1935, letter by Helga Voigt published in Letters from Helga 1934-1937 (2008) on p. 119

(dated, Africa) A consultation, usually between a bwana and a local African.


beniseed

en-noun

beniseed (countable and uncountable, plural beniseeds)

Benniseed is a portmanteau of both the word benne and seed. Benne, meaning sesame derives from Gullah benne which is akin to Malinke bĕne.


crocodile clip

(UK, Ireland, Africa, Australia) An alligator clip.


shenzi

We instructed our men to shoot first and inquire afterward, if a shenzi so much as showed himself in the clearing.

1919, Stewart Edward White, The Land of Footprints, page 263:

(dated, Africa) A barbarian (variously used to refer to foreigners, Europeans, or pagans)


hardbody

(Africa) Designating a kind of large, tough chicken with strong bones.


miraa

Now that people are no longer making money from miraa, they do not have money to buy food

2015 June 27, Jacqueline Kubania, “How Britain's khat ban devastated an entire Kenyan town”, in The Guardian:


katemfe

Another interesting African fruit containing an intense sweetener is katemfe, or the miraculous fruit of the Sudan.

1980, The Herbarist, numbers 46-48, Herb Society of America, page 74:

(Africa) The shrub Thaumatococcus danielli.


catlet

One of these was the large-scaled yellowfish, another the barred minnow, and also the small rock catlet.

1978, Dale Kenmuir, A Wilderness Called Kariba: The Wildlife and Natural History of Lake Kariba, page 36:


Moz

(Southern Africa, slang) Clipping of Mozambique.


diamba

They are much addicted to smoking diamba, but many of the other Africans at Sierra Leone likewise indulge in it.

1863, Robert Clarke, “Sketches of the Colony of Sierra Leone and its Inhabitants”, in Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, volume 2, page 357:

On his safe return, loaded with the white man's things, Kishimbu ascribed his good fortune to the inspiration of diamba-smoke. He advised all his people to adopt diamba smoking as a national custom […]

1893, Heli Chatelain, “Bantu Notes and Vocabularies”, in Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, volume 25, number 4, page 521:


heartman

(Africa) A witch doctor who kills people to steal their organs.


muratina

(Africa) A Kenyan alcoholic drink made from the dried fruit of sausage tree (Kigelia africana).


unipot

Moreover, the phenomenon of mama ingia pole (low-lying grass huts or iron unipots) for most low-level ranks has continued to be the commonest mode of housing available to most soldiers.

2016, Byaruhanga Rukooko, The right to food and development in Africa, page 143:


talakawa

(Africa) An ordinary citizen; a commoner.


outgrower

(chiefly Africa) A farmer who undertakes to supply a buyer with crops or livestock at some future time and meeting certain requirements; in return, the buyer agrees to make the purchase (perhaps at a pre-agreed price) and may provide other support.


gangman

Heavy snowfalls are prevalent in winter on the higher sections. Three rotary ploughs are stationed on the mountain length, and dozer-ploughs, scrapers, and several hundred extra gangmen are called in to assist when necessary.

1947 September and October, “By Northern Pacific to Seattle”, in Railway Magazine, page 270:

(chiefly India and Africa) A member of a work gang; a laborer, often on railways.


squandamania

(Africa) Alternative form of squandermania.


water yam

water yams (plural)
wateryam (alternative)

Dioscorea alata
Dioscorea alata#Translingual

(Africa, Caribbean) The purple yam, Dioscorea alata.


ogbono

Irvingia gabonensis
Irvingia gabonensis#Translingual

(Africa) The almond-like seeds of Irvingia gabonensis, used to thicken soup etc.


hut tax

The Natives have paid up their hut-tax, amounting to about £65, and appear to have plenty of money.

1901 June 7, “District Reports”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 7, page 196:

(Africa, historical) A tax imposed by colonial authorities on dwellings or households.


shamba boy

Benjamin, of course, already had a job and he was happy with it. As shamba boy at Number 12 Garden Lane he swept the lawn and swept the paths.

2008, Nicholas Drayson, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, page 23:

(Africa) A man or boy employed to tend a garden; a gardener.


Africanfuturism

Africanfuturism (usually uncountable, plural Africanfuturisms)

Coined by science fiction and fantasy author Nnedi Okorafor in 2019, from African + futurism.

coin

Africanfuturism is similar to “Afrofuturism” in the way that blacks on the continent and in the Black Diaspora are all connected by blood, spirit, history and future. The difference is that Africanfuturism is specifically and more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black Diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West.

2019, Nnedi Okorafor, “Africanfuturism Defined”, in Nnedi's Wahala Zone Blog:

Thompson’s Africanfuturism is both queer and decolonial at the same time, necessitating an approach to embodiment that does not look like white, Western performative queerness

2021, Jenna N. Hanchey, “'The self is embodied': Reading queer and trans Africanfuturism in The Wormwood Trilogy”, in Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, volume 14, number 4, →DOI, page 321:

Later this year, the highly anticipated sequel to Black Panther (2018), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, releases. This will likely mark another big surge in wider public excitement and shared fan art depicting elements of Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism.

2022, Alyssa Shotwell, “The Key Differences Between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism (With Examples!)”, in The Mary Sue:

(Africa, science fiction, neologism) An Afrocentric subgenre of science fiction that foregrounds familial, spiritual and historical connections among Black people, paying particular attention to African culture, history and mythology, and African perspectives, rather than those of the African diaspora in the western world.


afitin

Parkia biglobosa
Parkia biglobosa#Translingual

(Africa) A fermented bean (African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) product used as a condiment in West Africa.


widow cleansing

A group of women in western Kenya is fighting "widow-cleansing", a traditional ritual practiced by Luo ethnic communities in some of the poorer, more rural areas of the country.

2017 December 6, “Kenya widows fight sexual 'cleansing' practise”, in BBC News:

The practices of widow cleansing, as well as widow inheritance, pose a serious risk of spreading HIV/AIDS to individuals and among the wider community.

2019 May 23, Roseline Orwa, “Kenya: education, stigma and widow cleansing”, in LSE blog:

(Africa) A tradition that requires widowed women to have sexual intercourse as a form of ritual purification

Sexual rites of passage#Sexual cleansing of widows


black tax

en-noun

black tax (countable and uncountable, plural black taxes)

(Africa) A perceived obligation by a black person to give money to parents, siblings, or other family members.


amerikani

So called because first imported from America.