ǃKung

US/kʊŋ/

proper noun

A group of Bushmen people living in the Kalahari Desert.

Similar
ǃXun

Meanings

proper noun
  1. 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 155
    5 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 179

    From 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.17

    The 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, →ISBN

    Synonyms: ǃXun

  2. 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 286
    3 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 17

    Harpending spoke ǃKung because of his previous fieldwork in the area, […]

    1994, The Aging Experience: diversity and commonality across cultures (Jennie Keith), page 24

    In 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.

Similar
ǃXun
Also see

Origin

  1. khi-kun-
  2. khi-kun-
  3. EnglishǃKung

Borrowed from ǃKung.

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

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

ǃKung. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/%C7%83Kung

MLA

“ǃKung.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/%C7%83Kung. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

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.