Kanga
noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A comb, required to be worn at all times by Sikhs, one of the five Ks. Sikhism
- 2 A colourful printed cotton garment worn by women in East Africa.
- 3 A prison warder. slang
"There are some 32 different terms for prison officers, from the humorously affectionate kanga(rhyming slang:kangaroo = screw) and the variants Scooby-Doo and Dr. Who via the mildly confrontational German (as if still the enemy over 50 years after World War II!) to the outright abuse of shit-parcel."
Example
More examples"There are some 32 different terms for prison officers, from the humorously affectionate kanga(rhyming slang:kangaroo = screw) and the variants Scooby-Doo and Dr. Who via the mildly confrontational German (as if still the enemy over 50 years after World War II!) to the outright abuse of shit-parcel."
Etymology
From Punjabi ਕੰਘਾ (kaṅghā).
From Swahili kanga.
From kangaroo, rhyming slang for screw.
Related phrases
More for "kanga"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.