matatu
English
editEtymology
editBorrowed from Swahili matatu, a clipping of mapeni matatu (“thirty cents”, literally “three ten-cent coins”) (the flat fare paid for such transportation in the 1960s). The word matatu is from ma- (prefix forming plurals) + -tatu (“three”) (from Proto-Bantu *-tátʊ̀ (“three”)).[1]
Pronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /məˈtætuː/
Audio (Southern England): (file) Audio (Kenya): (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /məˈtɑˌtu/
- Hyphenation: ma‧ta‧tu
Noun
editmatatu (plural matatus or matatu)
- (Kenya, Uganda) A minivan used as a share taxi, especially one operating without a licence.
- 1982, United Nations Centre for Human Settlements Habitat News:
- A matatu is also more profitable when driven by its owner than by an employed driver, or if the employee-driver pays in all the earnings and the owner meets the operating costs, rather than when the owner demands a fixed sum of money daily, with the operator keeping the surplus.
- 2010, Philo Ikonya, Leading the Night, page 102:
- For now, matatus made lanes along both sides of tarmac main roads and went over, around or through potholes depending on their speed.
- 2017, Kenda Mutongi, Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi, page 98:
- Memories of their sense of trepidation, or even the anger, aboard a matatu could still be visceral.
- 2024 January 13, David Pilling, “Revenge of the moderators”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 15:
- The roads were jammed with matatu minibuses sporting cartoonish liveries, and trucks billowing black smoke into the dazzling African light.
Hypernyms
editDerived terms
editTranslations
editSee also
editReferences
edit- ^ “matatu, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2018; “matatu, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
edit- matatu on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Category:matatus on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
Spanish
editNoun
editmatatu m (plural matatus)
Swahili
editEtymology
editFrom -tatu (“three”), based on the original flat fare of thirty cents in the 1960s.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editmatatu (ma class, plural matatu)
Adjective
editmatatu
Categories:
- English terms borrowed from Swahili
- English terms derived from Swahili
- English terms derived from Proto-Bantu
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Swahili terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English indeclinable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- Kenyan English
- Ugandan English
- English terms with quotations
- en:Road transport
- en:Vehicles
- Spanish lemmas
- Spanish nouns
- Spanish countable nouns
- Spanish masculine nouns
- Swahili lemmas
- Swahili nouns
- Swahili ma class nouns
- Kenyan Swahili
- Swahili non-lemma forms
- Swahili adjective forms
- sw:Vehicles
- sw:Road transport