Kula
name, noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A tower, turret or steeple in Southeast Europe erected during the period of Ottoman domination on the area.
"Instead of the haïdooks, their next of kin, the zaptiés now hold a kula on the highest point of the pass; here one pauses to rest after scrambling up the vile Turkish road on one side of the ravine, and before scrambling down the vile Turkish road on the other."
- 2 A ceremonial exchange system conducted in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea, involving the exchange of bracelets and necklaces, and linked to political authority. uncountable
- 3 Alternative form of Kulah (“type of rug”). alt-of, alternative
- 1 A surname.
- 2 A census-designated place in Maui County, Hawaii, United States.
- 3 A town, a municipality of Vojvodina, Serbia.
Example
More examples"‘Without burning thirst, what is the brook for?’ Arkadź Kulašoŭ asks in his verse."
Etymology
From a South Slavic language, from Turkish kule, from Persian قله (qolle), from Arabic قُلَّة (qulla, “pinnacle, zenith”).
From a Melanesian language.
* Slavic origin: as a Czech, Polish, and Slovak surname, see Polish kula (“ball”). * Also as a Czech surname, shortened from Mikuláš, the Czech form of Nicholas. * As a Jewish Belarusian surname, from the placename Kulya.
From Hawaiian Kula.
From Serbo-Croatian Кула /Kula, from кула /kula (“tower, turret”), from Ottoman Turkish قله (kulle).
Related phrases
More for "kula"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.