Nigerian

How to spell nigerian

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce nigerian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nigerian mean?

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

Nigerian in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves traditional nigerian stews and rice dishes.

• noun

  As a proud nigerian, he often spoke about his home city of Lagos.

• adjective

  She studied the nigerian economy for her dissertation on West African trade.

• noun

  The conference welcomed a nigerian working in renewable energy.

Where does nigerian come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is an adjective formed from Nigeria, the West African country, with the common English suffix -an meaning 'belonging to' or 'coming from'. Nigeria itself was coined in the late 1800s and takes its name from the River Niger, the great waterway that flows through the region. The river's name is of uncertain origin: it was long assumed to derive from the Latin niger, meaning 'black', but most scholars now think this was a later misreading and that the true source lies in a local Berber or West African term whose exact form and meaning are debated. The familiar -ian ending, seen in words such as 'Canadian' and 'Australian', signals nationality, and it is this clean, regular suffix that keeps the spelling more predictable than the disputed roots behind it. Because the country name ends in -ia, the demonym simply swaps that for -ian.

How the word is built

• Niger (the river/country name)
• -ia (place suffix)
• -an (relating to, belonging to)