African

How to spell african

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce african

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does african mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the continent of Africa, its countries, peoples, or cultures.
2. nounA person who comes from or whose ancestry is in Africa.

African in a sentence

• adjective

  The museum opened a new gallery of african art.

• noun

  As a proud african, he often spoke about his homeland.

• adjective

  She studied african history at university for three years.

• noun

  The keynote speaker was an african who had studied medicine abroad.

Where does african come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin Africanus, meaning 'belonging to Africa', which was formed from Africa, the Roman name for the lands south of the Mediterranean. The Romans originally used Africa for the region around Carthage in present-day Tunisia, possibly from the name of a local Berber people, the Afri, though the exact root is debated. Over time the name expanded to cover the whole continent, and the adjective travelled into English by the 1500s as people wrote about geography and trade. The capital letter and the single 'f' followed by a single 'c' are the points that catch writers, since the spelling looks as though it might double a consonant. Because it is a proper adjective derived from a place name, it always keeps its capital A in normal writing even though it is stored here in lower case.

How the word is built

• Afric- (from Latin Africa, the continent)
• -an (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to')