mchana
noun
daytime or daylight, as opposed to night.
Names the daylight part of the day. In greetings, Habari za mchana? asks how the afternoon is going.
Origins
Mchana is an old Swahili word, inherited through the language’s Bantu roots rather than borrowed later. It names the bright stretch of the day after morning and before evening.
Haspelmath and Tadmor / Lexibank, World Loanword Database CLDF (Max Planck Institute / Lexibank, 2009), wold-master/cldf/forms.csv row 43205.
Classifies mchana as earlier Bantu vocabulary with no evidence of borrowing.
A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (1903), 245.
Defines mchana as daytime or daylight, in contrast with night.
Examples
Ni mchana sasa.
It is daytime now.
Tutakutana mchana.
We will meet during the day.
Mchana kuna jua kali.
The sun is strong during the day.
Nitarudi mchana.
I will return during the day.
Alifanya kazi mchana kutwa.
They worked all day.
Chakula cha mchana kiko tayari.
Lunch is ready.
Leo mchana tuna mkutano.
We have a meeting this afternoon.
Walifika wakati wa mchana.
They arrived during the daytime.
Mchana ni tofauti na usiku.
Daytime is different from night.
