Mali
name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A Somali. Multicultural-London-English, slang
- 2 A member of a caste in South Asia whose traditional occupation is gardening; hence, any South Asian gardener. India, South-Asia
"[H]ence the slow progress hitherto made in the cultivation of such produce of the garden as is generally held in estimation by the European portion of the community, left as it generally is, to the simple Hindoo mallee (or gardener,) it is not to be wondered at, that our bazars want what are deemed the more delicate articles of vegetable production for the table; […]"
- 3 Money, cash. South-Africa, uncountable
- 4 plural of malus form-of, plural
"The existence of boni and mali for the different risks can be interpreted through the sign of estimated covariances."
- 1 A country in West Africa. Official name: Republic of Mali.
Example
More examples"Mali is one of the poorest countries in Subsaharan Africa."
Etymology
Inherits its name from the Mali Empire, in turn from Mandinka or Dyula mali (“hippopotamus”).
Clipping of Somali (“a person from Somalia or of Somali descent”).
Borrowed from Hindi माली (mālī, “gardener”), from Sanskrit माली (mālī, “wreath-maker, garland-maker; florist; gardener”), मालिन् (mālin, “florist; gardener”), from माला (mālā, “wreath, garland; chaplet, crown”).
Borrowed from Xhosa imali, Zulu imali (“money”), both ultimately from Swahili mali (“riches, wealth; property”), from Arabic مَال (māl, “money; affluence, wealth; possessions, property”). Some dictionaries suggest an origin in English money instead, making no attempt to account for the distribution of the loanword nor the proposed shift from /n/ to /l/, both of which make this unlikely.
Borrowed from Latin malī, a plural form of malus (“adverse, unfavourable, unfortunate, unlucky; destructive, hurtful; bad, evil”) (probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- (“erroneous, false; bad, evil”)).
Related phrases
More for "mali"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.