Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A region and former Muslim kingdom of western Africa occupying a vast plain in present-day northeast Nigeria. Founded in the 14th century, the kingdom reached the height of its power in the late 16th century. The region became part of Nigeria in 1902.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Fulani begins jihad against Hausa 1804; invade Bornu 1808; found Adamawa emirate 1820; found Hamdallahi caliphate in Mali 1820; British trade 1885..

    A survey of West Africa: a Chronology 2007

  • Hausa kingdoms and the Kanem-Bornu Empire prospered as trade posts between North and West Africa.

    Gender Sensitivity Among Nigerian Ethnic Group « Illiteracy Articles « Articles « Literacy News 2009

  • Bornu would be colonised apace; the naturalist would pass safely through Habes in his railway – car to the Upper Nile.

    Peer Gynt 2008

  • Now one of the rarest savanna antelopes in Nigeria, klipspringer were at one point found in Bauchi, Bornu and Zaria provinces, and were widespread on the Bauchi Plateau.

    Jos Plateau forest-grassland mosaic 2008

  • The native Sultans of Darfur, like those of Bornu and others further west, used white muslin as a face-wrap: hence, too, the ceremonies when spitting, etc., etc. The Kúfiyah or head-kerchief of the Arabs soon reached Europe and became in Low Latin Cuphia; in

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Bornu would be colonised apace; the naturalist would pass safely through Habes in his railway – car to the Upper Nile.

    Peer Gynt 2008

  • Roman civilisation carried pederasty also to Northern Africa, where it took firm root, while the negro and negroid races to the South ignore the erotic perversion, except where imported by foreigners into such kingdoms as Bornu and Haussa.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Big men from Bornu, they are, but it will take all fifty of them to conquer me.

    Death Stalks The Ruins Adams, Stephen 2005

  • "To you men of Bornu," she went on, and now her face, her head, her whole body seemed to wave with the torchlight.

    Death Stalks The Ruins Adams, Stephen 2005

  • The subject tribes included the Tibu, a desert race, of mixed negro and Stygian blood; and the Bagirmi, Mandingo, Dongola, Bornu, and other negro tribes of the grasslands to the south.

    The Bloody Crown Of Conan Howard, Robert E. 2003

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