gari
noun
car; wheeled vehicle. The plural is magari.
Broad vehicle word; context narrows it to a car, cart, wagon, or other wheeled transport.
Origins
Gari is the ordinary Swahili word for a wheeled vehicle. Historical dictionaries already gloss carriage and cart senses, and the comparative loanword record treats the modern car sense as clearly borrowed.
Sources3
M. Haspelmath and U. Tadmor, World Loanword Database · Swahili profile (Max Planck Institute / Lexibank, 2009), Swahili profile; forms.csv (gari).
Lists Swahili gari for cart/wagon and car senses and marks the form as clearly borrowed.
A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), alphabetical notes involving gari.
Attests gari in vehicle vocabulary.
Edward Steere, A Handbook of the Swahili Language as Spoken at Zanzibar (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884), alphabetical entry: Gari.
Records gari / magari as a carriage or wheeled vehicle.
Examples
Gari linaenda mjini.
The car is going to town.
Magari mengi yamesimama.
Many vehicles have stopped.
Amepanda gari.
She has gotten into the car.
Dereva anasafisha gari.
The driver is cleaning the car.
Gari letu limeharibika.
Our car has broken down.
Tuliacha gari nje.
We left the car outside.
Bei ya gari ni kubwa.
The price of the car is high.
Magari yanapita haraka.
Vehicles are passing quickly.
Nitasafiri kwa gari kesho.
I will travel by car tomorrow.
