"donga" meaning in English

See donga in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈdɔŋɡə/ [General-American], /ˈdɒŋɡə/ [Received-Pronunciation] Forms: dongas [plural]
Etymology: From Afrikaans donga, from Zulu udonga. Etymology templates: {{bor|en|af|donga}} Afrikaans donga, {{der|en|zu|udonga}} Zulu udonga Head templates: {{en-noun}} donga (plural dongas)
  1. (South Africa) A usually dry, eroded watercourse running only in times of heavy rain. Tags: South-Africa Synonyms: arroyo, wadi, wash Translations (dry, eroded watercourse): donga (Afrikaans), Donga [feminine] (German)
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 1

Noun

IPA: /dɔŋə/ [General-Australian] Audio: EN-AU ck1 donga.ogg Forms: dongas [plural]
Etymology: Unknown; probably connected in some way with Etymology 1. Etymology templates: {{unk|en}} Unknown Head templates: {{en-noun}} donga (plural dongas)
  1. (Australia) A transportable building providing accommodation for one person, often used on remote work sites or as tourist accommodation. Tags: Australia
    Sense id: en-donga-en-noun-BNwrSS2W Categories (other): Australian English, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 5 entries, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 34 60 6 Disambiguation of Pages with 5 entries: 18 34 4 4 5 5 11 20 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 20 34 2 2 3 3 11 24
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 2

Noun

Forms: dongas [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} donga (plural dongas)
  1. Alternative spelling of donger (“penis”) Tags: alt-of, alternative Alternative form of: donger (extra: penis)
    Sense id: en-donga-en-noun-80buGPFx
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Etymology number: 3

Inflected forms

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        "1": "en",
        "2": "af",
        "3": "donga"
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      "name": "bor"
    },
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      "args": {
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        "2": "zu",
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  "forms": [
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          "ref": "1900, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Halt at Bloemfontein”, in The Great Boer War, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 349:",
          "text": "Major Pack-Beresford and other officers were shot down, and every unhorsed man remained necessarily as a prisoner under the very muzzles of the riflemen in the donga.",
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              103,
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          "ref": "1901, Ernest William Hornung, “The Knees of the Gods”, in Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman, Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 284:",
          "text": "There were trenches for us men, but no place of safety for our horses nearer than this long and narrow donga which ran from within our lines towards those of the Boers.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1948, Henry Vollam Morton, In Search of South Africa, Methuen, page 168:",
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          "ref": "1999, JM Coetzee, Disgrace, Vintage, published 2000, page 98:",
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          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "A usually dry, eroded watercourse running only in times of heavy rain."
      ],
      "id": "en-donga-en-noun-QWtdkaDu",
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        "(South Africa) A usually dry, eroded watercourse running only in times of heavy rain."
      ],
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        {
          "word": "arroyo"
        },
        {
          "word": "wadi"
        },
        {
          "word": "wash"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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          "sense": "dry, eroded watercourse",
          "word": "donga"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "dry, eroded watercourse",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
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        }
      ]
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      "ipa": "/ˈdɒŋɡə/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
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  ],
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}

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          "ref": "2004, Susie Ashworth, Rebecca Turner, Simone Egger, Western Australia, Lonely Planet, page 152:",
          "text": "Menzies Hotel ([Ph] 9024 2043; 22 Shenton St; s/d $48/65, donga $75) has old-style hotel rooms as well as - for that real goldfields experience - dongas (temporary miner′s abode, usually made from corrugated iron), and also serves all meals.",
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          "ref": "2004, James Woodford, The Dog Fence, page 225:",
          "text": "He not only expects his fence to be perfect, he also expects his dongas to be the best workman′s huts in Australia, and that is what they are.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "text": "2009, David Marr, The Ibdian Ocean Solution, Robyn Davidson (editor), The Best Australian Essays 2009, page 118,\nWorkers building roads in the bush sleep in dongas like these and are well paid for their discomfort."
        }
      ],
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        "A transportable building providing accommodation for one person, often used on remote work sites or as tourist accommodation."
      ],
      "id": "en-donga-en-noun-BNwrSS2W",
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          "building"
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        "(Australia) A transportable building providing accommodation for one person, often used on remote work sites or as tourist accommodation."
      ],
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        "Australia"
      ]
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          "ref": "1900, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Halt at Bloemfontein”, in The Great Boer War, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 349:",
          "text": "Major Pack-Beresford and other officers were shot down, and every unhorsed man remained necessarily as a prisoner under the very muzzles of the riflemen in the donga.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              103,
              108
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1901, Ernest William Hornung, “The Knees of the Gods”, in Raffles: Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman, Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 284:",
          "text": "There were trenches for us men, but no place of safety for our horses nearer than this long and narrow donga which ran from within our lines towards those of the Boers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              154,
              160
            ]
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          "ref": "1948, Henry Vollam Morton, In Search of South Africa, Methuen, page 168:",
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          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              106,
              111
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          "ref": "1999, JM Coetzee, Disgrace, Vintage, published 2000, page 98:",
          "text": "Count yourself lucky not to be a prisoner in the car at this moment, speeding away, or at the bottom of a donga with a bullet in your head.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A usually dry, eroded watercourse running only in times of heavy rain."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(South Africa) A usually dry, eroded watercourse running only in times of heavy rain."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "arroyo"
        },
        {
          "word": "wadi"
        },
        {
          "word": "wash"
        }
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      "tags": [
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    },
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      "code": "af",
      "lang": "Afrikaans",
      "sense": "dry, eroded watercourse",
      "word": "donga"
    },
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      ],
      "word": "Donga"
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}

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          ],
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          "text": "Menzies Hotel ([Ph] 9024 2043; 22 Shenton St; s/d $48/65, donga $75) has old-style hotel rooms as well as - for that real goldfields experience - dongas (temporary miner′s abode, usually made from corrugated iron), and also serves all meals.",
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          "text": "He not only expects his fence to be perfect, he also expects his dongas to be the best workman′s huts in Australia, and that is what they are.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "text": "2009, David Marr, The Ibdian Ocean Solution, Robyn Davidson (editor), The Best Australian Essays 2009, page 118,\nWorkers building roads in the bush sleep in dongas like these and are well paid for their discomfort."
        }
      ],
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      ],
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        "(Australia) A transportable building providing accommodation for one person, often used on remote work sites or as tourist accommodation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
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}

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      ],
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Download raw JSONL data for donga meaning in English (5.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-01 using wiktextract (89ebc88 and e74c913). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.