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Hot·ten·tot (hŏtn-tŏt′)
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n. pl. Hottentotor Hot·ten·tots
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1. A Khoikhoi person.
2. Any of the Khoekhoe languages.
[Afrikaans, perhaps from Dutch *hot en tot, (the syllables) hot and tot, an attempt by early European colonists to imitate the sound of the clicks in indigenous languages such as those of the Khoikhoi (although this explanation is not supported by early written accounts of southern Africa).]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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