Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun South Africa A
hoodlum or streetthug , especially one from thetownships ; atownship skollie .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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"What those men did was wrong, but I think they were trying to tell her something," he says, his shoulder-length dreadlocks capped by a hat marked "tsotsi" (township slang for gangster).
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(Samwu) staged a low-key protest march to Nkosi's offices in Germiston chanting slogans calling Nkosi a "tsotsi" and saying McBride should be fired.
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'The threat of the' tsotsi 'is permanent,' the priest said, referring to the young armed black gangsters who bedevil South
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The women he had threatened at gunpoint pleaded for the picture of the "tsotsi" to be used on page one.
IOL: News 2009
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"opstande en strooptogte en vandalisme" (revolt, marauding raids, vandalism) and fuelled by the "tsotsi" element, was a tragic example of how a
'I Saw a Nightmare …' Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976 2005
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"tsotsi" during an opposition party rally in Harare on Saturday.
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One journalist jokingly asked whether it would be translated into tsotsi taal (gangster slang).
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It seems that these tsotsi gangs carried off and seized so much alcohol with the burning of the liquor stores that their boundaries of responsibility (inhibitions) were totally taken away, so that violence, anarchy, and chaos reigned supreme.
'I Saw a Nightmare …' Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976 2005
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On this particular day bottle stores were broken into, bottle stores were looted and in a situation like that one could expect the tsotsi element to make full use of an opportunity like this and this is exactly what they did … At 3 I was still at Phefeni.
'I Saw a Nightmare …' Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976 2005
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Dit wil voorkom asof hierdie tsotsi-bendes met die afbrand van drankwinkels soveel drank buitgemaak en verober het dat dit hul verantwoordelikheidsgrense (inhibisies) totaal verwyder het, sodat geweld, anargie en chaos verder hoogty gevier het.
'I Saw a Nightmare …' Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976 2005
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