Dahomey

//dəˈhəʊmi// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A former kingdom in West Africa, existing from c. 1600–1904 and located in the southern part of present-day Benin. historical

    "The way other children hear tell of Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks, I heard of this ‘Black Sparta’, the noble kingdom of Dahomey, fighting to hold off the French to the very end."

  2. 2
    Former name of Benin: a country in West Africa; used from 1958–1975. Official name: Republic of Dahomey. historical

Synonyms

All synonyms
benin

Example

More examples

"Present day Benin was the site of Dahomey, a West African kingdom that rose to prominence in about 1600 and over the next two and a half centuries became a regional power."

Etymology

From Fon dã homè (“belly of Dã; snake's belly”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.