Kenyan

How to spell kenyan

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce kenyan

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does kenyan mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Kenya, its people, or its culture.
2. nounA person who is from or a citizen of Kenya.

Kenyan in a sentence

• adjective

  The kenyan coffee export industry employs thousands of farmers.

• noun

  As a kenyan, he held a passport issued in Nairobi.

• adjective

  She studied the kenyan legal system for her thesis.

• noun

  Every kenyan at the conference spoke about regional trade.

Where does kenyan come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is the demonym formed from Kenya, the name of the East African republic, plus the English suffix -an, which derives ultimately from the Latin -anus and is used to mean 'belonging to' or 'a native of' a place. The country name itself comes from Mount Kenya, the great peak at the nation's centre; the mountain's name is generally traced to local Bantu and Kikuyu words such as Kirinyaga or Kere-Nyaga, often glossed as 'mountain of whiteness' or 'mountain of brightness', a reference to its snow-capped summit near the equator. European explorers and mapmakers in the nineteenth century rendered the name as Kenya, and it became the official name of the colony and later the independent state that gained sovereignty in 1963. The word entered wide English use as both a noun for a person from Kenya and an adjective describing things of that country. The main spelling trap is simply remembering the single 'n' before the '-yan' ending and not doubling letters or inserting an extra vowel.

How the word is built

• Kenya (the East African country)
• -an (suffix meaning 'belonging to' or 'native of')