Word
zulu
Phoneticszu·lu
/ˈzuˌɫu/
Definition
n. a member of a large ethnic group from South Africa, or the language they speak. It is also used in the international radio alphabet to represent the letter Z.
n. a member of a Nguni-speaking people of South Africa; also refers to the Southern Bantu language spoken by this group. In the NATO phonetic alphabet, it represents the letter Z and is used to denote UTC time in military and aviation contexts.
Examples
“He is learning to speak Zulu before his trip to Durban.”
“The pilot confirmed the departure time as 14:00 Zulu to avoid any confusion with local time zones.”
“The Zulu kingdom rose to prominence in the early nineteenth century under the leadership of Shaka, whose military innovations fundamentally reshaped the sociopolitical landscape of Southern Africa.”
Examples
simple
“He is learning to speak Zulu before his trip to Durban.”
contextual
“The pilot confirmed the departure time as 14:00 Zulu to avoid any confusion with local time zones.”
complex
“The Zulu kingdom rose to prominence in the early nineteenth century under the leadership of Shaka, whose military innovations fundamentally reshaped the sociopolitical landscape of Southern Africa.”
Usage
Uncountable when referring to the language; countable when referring to individual people. When used for time, it is often placed after the numerals without a space.
Etymology
From Zulu umZulu.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/zulu