Toubab

//tu.bab// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A white person. Africa, Central, West

    "Jean-Baptiste was my only real white friend in the trench. He was the only Toubab who came to console me after the death of Mademba Diop."

Example

More examples

"Jean-Baptiste was my only real white friend in the trench. He was the only Toubab who came to console me after the death of Mademba Diop."

Etymology

The most likely earliest derivation is from the Wolof word for Europe, "Tougal". In the same way that Wolof means the people of Jollof, Toubab means the people of Tougal.

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