Egoli, noun

/eˈɡɔːli//ɪˈɡəʊlɪ/
Forms:
E Goli, eGoliShow more Also E Goli, eGoli, Goli, Igoli, iGoli.
Origin:
IsiZulu, EnglishShow more IsiZulu, ‘place of gold’, locative prefix e- + -goli (adaptation of English gold).
Golden City. Also attributive.
[1925 D. Kidd Essential Kafir 26If they have been to Johannesburg — ‘Goldi’ or ‘Josaberg’ is what they usually call it — they will probably have brought back with them a great variety of things.]
c1948 H. Tracey Lalela Zulu 24This is a song..about a man who is courting a girl whose original lover is away working in ‘Goli’ (Johannesburg).
c1948 H. Tracey Lalela Zulu 80Beyond the banks of the Vaal, We come to the great city of Goli.
1951 Drum Oct. 6In Britain, with forty times the population of the Reef, there is only one murder every three days. Egoli has a worse record than anywhere else in the civilised world.
1959 L. Longmore Dispossessed 16Igoli, the Golden City, the dazzling magnet attracting Africans from all over the vast sub-continent of Africa, has provided the biggest problem that Africa has to face today, namely, the African projected into an urban, industrialized environment.
1964 H.H.W. De Villiers Rivonia 43The Bantu usually refers to Johannesburg as ‘Goli’ (‘Goldie’). The Whites sometimes refer to Johannesburg as the ‘City of Gold’.
1973 M. Reinhart in Sunday Times 9 Dec. 5Johannesburg in summer...When..the jacarandas are in bloom.., Egoli is as green as Natal and twice as exciting.
1989 O. Musi in Drum Apr. 36Goli children know nothing about livestock except that these become food as soon as they are slaughtered and taken to the butchery around the corner.
1991 P. Slabolepszy Braait Laaities. 15If you stay long-time in eGoli you get quick-quick very old.
1994 R. Malan in Sidelines Dec. 31Egoli’s factories began to run at full capacity.
Golden City. Also attributive.
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IsiZulu
English
egg-eater, nounn.egte, adjectiveadj.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English.