Meanings
- A group of Bushmen people living in the Kalahari Desert.
The San-speaking ǃKung of southern Africa are nearly always chosen to exemplify the forager strategy.
c. 2001–2007, Archaeology at the Millennium: A Sourcebook (Gary M. Feinman, T. Douglas Price), page 1555 more examples
Given the early sex play, I will hazard a guess that there are few ǃKung virgins, male or female, at puberty.
1992, Richard B. Lee, Work, Sexuality, and Aging Among ǃKung Women, in In her prime: new views of middle-aged women (Virginia Kerns, Judith K. Brown), page 39[…] and that ǃKung women are married so young because ǃKung men try to marry them before the Bantu do!
1996, Nicholas Blurton Jones, Kristen Hawkes, James F. O'Connell, “The global process and local ecology”, in Susan Kent, editor, Cultural Diversity Among Twentieth-Century Foragers, page 179From the peaceful and gentle ǃKung San Bushmen to the urbane and civilised Montaigne, from folk legend to Freudian complex, from Medusa to the Blue Angel, men blame women for their discomforts and disappointments.
2001, Jenny Diski, “Oh, Andrea Dworkin”, in London Review of Books, XXIII.17The San-speaking ǃKung of Botswana (the “Bushmen” of old) are presented as a distinct, “other,” and apparently primordial “people.”
2008, The cultural geography reader (Timothy Oakes, Patricia Lynn Price), page 65(Once known as "Bushmen," the ǃKung, today, are also known as the Nyae Nyae or the Jo-hoansi, pronounced zhu-wahnsi.) The ǃ symbol in the ǃKung language is a click sound made with the tongue.
2009, Cameron M. Smith, Evan T. Davies, editors, Anthropology For Dummies, →ISBNSynonyms: ǃXun
- A Khoisan language spoken in Namibia, Angola, and South Africa, famous for its click consonants.
None of the ideologues spoke ǃKung, […]
2007, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Old Way: A Story of the First People, page 2863 more examples
The ǃ in the word ǃKung is an orthographic symbol denoting a "click" sound. The ǃKung language, aside from sharing many of the same sounds found in all languages, has four distinct clicks […]
1973, The Second Wave, volume 3, page 17Harpending spoke ǃKung because of his previous fieldwork in the area, […]
1994, The Aging Experience: diversity and commonality across cultures (Jennie Keith), page 24In Epembe, Oonduda and Uusilo very few people could understand and even fewer could speak ǃKung. They expressed their sorrow at this loss.
2002, New horizons for the San: participatory action research with San communities in Northern Namibia (Dhyani J. Berger, Elke Zimprich), page 22
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounA group of Bushmen people living in the Kalahari Desert.
Origin
- khi-kun-
- khi-kun-
- EnglishǃKung
Borrowed from ǃKung.
More words from khi-kun
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian Кунг
- Кунг (Kung)group of Bushmen
Korean ǃ쿵족, ǃ쿵어
- ǃ쿵족group of Bushmen
- ǃ쿵어Khoisan language
Russian Кунг, жу
- Кунг (Kung)group of Bushmen
- жу (žu)Khoisan language
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with ǃKung
Cite this entry
ǃKung. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/%C7%83Kung
“ǃKung.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/%C7%83Kung. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ǃKung,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/%C7%83Kung.
Source: ǃKung on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.