Khoisan

//ˈkɔɪˌsɑn// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A member of the group of non-Bantu Southern African indigenous people: the Khoi or San people.
  2. 2
    a family of languages spoken in southern Africa wordnet
  3. 3
    nomadic hunters and gatherers who live in southern Africa wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The group of languages associated with the Khoisan including the Khoi, Kx'a and Tuu families, sometimes to the inclusion of the Hadza and Sandawe language isolates of Tanzania.

Synonyms

All synonyms
bushmanbushmankhoisan languagelanguage

Etymology

From Khoi + San, from the pastoral Khoi tribe (formerly also called Hottentots) and the hunter-gatherer San (also known as Bushmen). Coined by Isaac Schapera in 1930, in linguistic usage since the 1950s (following Joseph Greenberg, Studies in African Linguistic Classification, 1955).

Related phrases

southern african

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