rĩithori

Kikuyu

Etymology

From Proto-Bantu *-yí̧cōdī̧.^[1]

Hinde (1904) records maithorri as an equivalent of English tears in “Jogowini dialect” of Kikuyu, listing also Kamba methoii as its equivalent.^[2]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɾèìðɔ́ɾì(ꜜ)/

As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 3 with a trisyllabic stem, together with kĩgokora, mbarĩki, thimiti, and so on.

• (Kiambu)

• (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including gĩcũhĩ, gĩkorora, kĩgokora, mũceere, mũgathĩ, mũgogo (pl. mĩgogo), mũgoma, mũirĩtu, mbarĩki, ndagitari, ngirathi, njohero, njũi, ũnyiinyi, and so on.^[3]

• (Nyeri) IPA^(key): /ɾèìðɔ́ɾìꜜ/^[1]

Noun

rĩithori class 5 (plural maithori)

1. teardrop, tear

Derived terms

(Proverbs)

• mbere nĩ gĩkeno thutha nĩ maithori

References

1. Clements, George N. and Kevin C. Ford (1979). "Kikuyu Tone Shift and Its Synchronic Consequences", p. 187. In Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 179–210.
2. Hinde, Hildegarde (1904). Vocabularies of the Kamba and Kikuyu languages of East Africa, pp. 58–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. 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.

• “rĩithori” in Benson, T.G. (1964). Kikuyu-English dictionary, p. 192. Oxford: Clarendon Press.