ujamaa

noun

1. A socialist ideology of cooperation and collective advancement that formed the basis of socioeconomic policies in Tanzania in the 1960s.

   uncountable

   On Tuesday night at the Club Serene in Brooklyn, Mayor Koch proclaimed Kwanzaa Week in New York. Then he told the crowd of about 400 that he had practiced his Swahili in order to pronounce correctly such exotic-sounding words as kujichagulia (self-determination), ujamaa (cooperative economics) and imani (faith), the theme of Kwanzaa '83.

2. A village built according to this ideology, with central homes and school surrounded by communal farmland.

   countable

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Swahili ujamaa (“brotherhood, extended family”), from jamaa (“family”), from Arabic جَمَاعَة (jamāʕa, “group (of people)”).

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry ujamaa (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← udarnikukase →

Another random word More words starting with U