"kwerekwere" meaning in English

See kwerekwere in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: amakwerekwere [plural]
Etymology: Onomatopoeic. Foreigners who came to the townships could not speak the local languages. One theory on the origin of this term is that their own languages sounded like kwirikwirikwiri to the locals. A more plausible theory is that this term was a corruption of the word "korekore". The Korekore are a sub-group of the Shona people in neighboring Zimbabwe. Etymology templates: {{onomatopoeic|en}} Onomatopoeic Head templates: {{en-noun|amakwerekwere}} kwerekwere (plural amakwerekwere)
  1. (South Africa) A foreign visitor to a township. Tags: South-Africa Synonyms: kweri-kweri, kwiri-kwiri [uncommon]
    Sense id: en-kwerekwere-en-noun-jCZNShZi Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English onomatopoeias, South African English

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for kwerekwere meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en"
      },
      "expansion": "Onomatopoeic",
      "name": "onomatopoeic"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Onomatopoeic. Foreigners who came to the townships could not speak the local languages. One theory on the origin of this term is that their own languages sounded like kwirikwirikwiri to the locals. A more plausible theory is that this term was a corruption of the word \"korekore\". The Korekore are a sub-group of the Shona people in neighboring Zimbabwe.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "amakwerekwere",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "amakwerekwere"
      },
      "expansion": "kwerekwere (plural amakwerekwere)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English onomatopoeias",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "South African English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000, Nigerian man, interviewed by Zaa Nkweta for Carte Blanche, “Fighting a stereotype”",
          "text": "We came here just like every other nation. Just like Indians, Asians, Europeans. But we are the only people they call ‘kwerekwere’. They call the blacks ‘kwerekwere’, they don’t call the whites ‘kwerekwere’."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, a refugee in Cape Town named Hélène, quoted in “Living with prejudice - xenophobia and race”",
          "text": "If they see you are foreigner, you are “kwerekwere”. [They] give the name for all foreigners, “kwerekwere”."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 Weekend Argus May 13/14 2006 p.1",
          "text": "the township residents involved in the attacks invaded the homes and businesses owned by 'amakwerekwere' and stole their money and other property."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A foreign visitor to a township."
      ],
      "id": "en-kwerekwere-en-noun-jCZNShZi",
      "links": [
        [
          "township",
          "township"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(South Africa) A foreign visitor to a township."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "kweri-kweri"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "uncommon"
          ],
          "word": "kwiri-kwiri"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "South-Africa"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "kwerekwere"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en"
      },
      "expansion": "Onomatopoeic",
      "name": "onomatopoeic"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Onomatopoeic. Foreigners who came to the townships could not speak the local languages. One theory on the origin of this term is that their own languages sounded like kwirikwirikwiri to the locals. A more plausible theory is that this term was a corruption of the word \"korekore\". The Korekore are a sub-group of the Shona people in neighboring Zimbabwe.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "amakwerekwere",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "amakwerekwere"
      },
      "expansion": "kwerekwere (plural amakwerekwere)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with irregular plurals",
        "English onomatopoeias",
        "South African English"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2000, Nigerian man, interviewed by Zaa Nkweta for Carte Blanche, “Fighting a stereotype”",
          "text": "We came here just like every other nation. Just like Indians, Asians, Europeans. But we are the only people they call ‘kwerekwere’. They call the blacks ‘kwerekwere’, they don’t call the whites ‘kwerekwere’."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, a refugee in Cape Town named Hélène, quoted in “Living with prejudice - xenophobia and race”",
          "text": "If they see you are foreigner, you are “kwerekwere”. [They] give the name for all foreigners, “kwerekwere”."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 Weekend Argus May 13/14 2006 p.1",
          "text": "the township residents involved in the attacks invaded the homes and businesses owned by 'amakwerekwere' and stole their money and other property."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A foreign visitor to a township."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "township",
          "township"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(South Africa) A foreign visitor to a township."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "South-Africa"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "kweri-kweri"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "uncommon"
      ],
      "word": "kwiri-kwiri"
    }
  ],
  "word": "kwerekwere"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (9d9fc81 and db5a844). 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.