theleweni, noun
- Forms:
- Also with initial capital.
- Origin:
- IsiZuluShow more IsiZulu itheleweni, utheleweni ‘one who pours (people) over a cliff’; one who is guilty of violence towards other people (plural otheleweni); noun prefixes i-, u-, o- + thela pour + eweni locative form of iwa cliff, precipice.
derogatory
An insulting name for a member or supporter of Inkatha (see inkatha sense 2), used as a taunt. Also attributive.
1989 Natal Witness 30 Mar. (Witness Echo) 1Teachers..will have to teach the KwaZulu-prescribed ubuntu-botho syllabus...Opponents say..it is biased in favour of Inkatha. A teacher..said they had been told..to resume teaching the subject. ‘...The children will brand me a theleweni (Inkatha supporter).’
1990 M. Kentridge Unofficial War 21The comrades have coined a range of insulting terms for their Inkatha enemies. The most widely used, and the one most likely to provoke a state of rage in the person thus labelled, is theleweni, meaning ‘the one who pours us over a cliff’.
An insulting name for a member or supporter of Inkatha (see inkatha sense 2), used as a taunt. Also attributive.
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