lobolo or lo·bo·la [loh-buh-luh] ExamplesWord Origin noun, plural lo·bo·los.
- a bride price, typically of cattle, paid to a bride’s father among Bantu-speaking tribes of southern Africa.
Origin of lobolo 1815–25; Zulu (ili)lobolo, (i)lobolo (with implosive b), or a cognate Nguni word Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019 Examples from the Web for lobola Historical Examples of lobola
For I intend to lobola for all three of you, as well as for her.
Bertram Mitford
I will lobola for Nangeza, and soon I shall be an induna, and she shall be my “great wife.”
Bertram Mitford
It will be great to obtain wives we have paid no lobola for.
Bertram Mitford
As our father asks no lobola, perhaps you have taken the gift instead.
H. Rider Haggard
Lobola: The price in cattle paid by the intending bridegroom to the parent or guardian of a girl.
Bertram Mitford
British Dictionary definitions for lobola lobola lobolo noun
- (in southern Africa) an African custom by which a bridegroom’s family makes a payment in cattle or cash to the bride’s family shortly before the marriage
Word Origin for lobola from Nguni ukulobola to give the bride price Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012