chipula

Chichewa

Etymology

Cognate with Tonga (Malawi) chipura. Potentially from -pula (“to remove from a fire”). This could describe the process of making a knife, referring to heating the metal before taking it off the fire.

Noun

chipula class 7 (plural zipula class 8)

1. knife

Derived terms

• chipulausiku (“galaxy”)

References

• Steven Paas (2016), Oxford Chichewa-English/English - Chichewa Dictionary‎, Oxford University Press, page 82