mũthuuri

See also: mũthũũri

Kikuyu

Alternative forms

• mũthuri^[1]

Etymology

From gũthuura (“to select, to elect”).^[2]

Hinde (1904) records muthuri (pl. athuri) as an equivalent of English man (old) in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu.^[3]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mòðùːɾìꜜ/

As for Tonal Class, Armstrong (1940) classifies this term into moondo class which includes mũndũ, huko, igego, igoti, inooro, irigũ, irũa, kĩbaata, kĩmũrĩ, kũgũrũ, mũciĩ, mũgeni, mũri, mwaki (“fire”), ndaka, ndigiri, njagathi, njogu, Mũrĩmi (“man's name”), etc.^[4] Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 1 with a disyllabic stem, together with ndaka, and so on.

• (Kiambu)

• (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including cindano, huko, iburi, igego, igoti, ini (pl. mani), inooro, irigũ, irũa, iturubarĩ (pl. maturubarĩ), kĩbaata, kĩmũrĩ, kũgũrũ, mũciĩ, mũgeni, mũgũrũki, mũmbirarũ, mũndũ, mũri, mwaki (“fire”), mwario (“way of speaking”), mbogoro, nda, ndaka, ndigiri, ngo, njagathi, njogu, nyondo (“breast(s)”), and so on.^[5]

Noun

mũthuuri class 1 (plural athuuri)

1. married male person with children,^[2] husband^[6][5]

   mũthuuri wakwa ― my husband^[2]

   mũthuuriguo ― thy husband^[2]

   mũthuuriwe ― her husband^[2]

2. male person, man^[6]
3. adult (man)^[6]
4. elder^[6]

   mũthuuri wa kĩama ― a member of a traditional council of elders who have paid goats as fee^[6]

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “husband”): (concerning sex) mũtumia;^[6] (concerning marriage) mwanake^[6]
• (antonym(s) of “male person”): mũtumia^[6]
• (antonym(s) of “adult man”): (before circumcision) kĩhĩĩ,^[6] kahĩĩ;^[6] (after circumscision) mwana^[6]

Derived terms

(Phrases)

• athuuri a kanitha
• mũthuuri kĩhĩĩ

(Proverbs)

• mũthuuri ũtarĩ kahĩĩ nĩwe wĩriragĩra ngururu

Related terms

(Nouns)

• ũthuuri class 14

See also

• (husband, male person, adult man): mũrũme
• (husband): mũhikania

References

1. Barlow, A. Ruffell (1960). Studies in Kikuyu Grammar and Idiom, p. 234
2. “mũthuuri” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 533. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
3. Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 38–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. Armstrong, Lilias E. (1940). The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu. Rep. 1967. (Also in 2018 by Routledge).
5. Yukawa, Yasutoshi (1981). "A Tentative Tonal Analysis of Kikuyu Nouns: A Study of Limuru Dialect." In Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 22, 75–123.
6. Mugu, Muturi Anthony (2014). Antonymy in Gĩkũyũ: a cognitive semantics approach.

• Kagaya, Ryohei (1981). "An Analysis of Tonal Classification of Noun in the Kabete Dialect of Kikuyu", pp. 3, 7, 9. In Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 22.