lobola

plural lobolas

1. South AfricacountableuncountableThe bride price among certain Bantu peoples of South Africa.

   All the money he'd brought with him had gone into lobola – the dowry for a wife […].

   1979, André Brink, A Dry White Season, Vintage, published 1998, page 38

   3 more examples

   The cattle of the second kaffir had been obtained from the first kaffir as lobola; all (three) have died from the disease.

   1901 June 21, “The Rinderpest Outbreak”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 8

   Some must give up their ground for trees, and some for pastures. And hardest of all would be the custom of lobola, by which a man pays for his wife in cattle, for people kept too many cattle for this purpose, and counted all their wealth in cattle, so that the grass had no chance to recover.

   1948, Alan Paton, chapter 33, in Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner, page 253

   My sister Baliwe, who was older than Mabel, had been engaged to be married, and lobola had already been paid.

   1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 213

   Antonyms: dowry