kwanzaa
/ˈkwɑnzə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.12 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "On Tuesday night at the Club Serene in Brooklyn, Mayor Koch proclaimed Kwanzaa Week in New York. Then he told the crowd of about 400 that he had practiced his Swahili in order to pronounce correctly such exotic-sounding words as kujichagulia (self-determination), ujamaa (cooperative economics) and imani (faith), the theme of Kwanzaa '83."
- "But now, WASP's want their place in the multicultural sun. Social rituals are social rituals. If there is Kwanzaa, why not cotillions?"
- "Spying a way to use her son’s enthusiasm for video games to teach him about investing, Jaydyn’s mother, Nina Carr, decided to invest in 10 shares of GameStop at $6.19 a share for a Kwanzaa gift."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Bantu *kʊ̀- Proto-Sabaki *kw- Common Bantu *-jànda Proto-Sabaki *-anzya Proto-Sabaki *-a kwanzya Swahili -a kwanzabor. English Kwanzaa Coined by Maulana Karenga from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza (“first fruits”). The additional “a” was added to “Kwanza” so that the word would have seven letters, one for each of the Seven Principles of Blackness.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -