gba-
Active verbNdebe script
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Meanings
crack; split; snap; break
Active verbkick; shoot; run; crack; burst; drive; play (ball); grow (teeth)
Active verbturn
Active verb
Dialect & variants
No other variants have been documented for this word.
Examples
Onye gba aka jee ahia, ya hụ ihe mara mma ya na-eti nna eh! nna eh! ; ọ gị na nna gị Kwọ bịa?
— A person who goes to market with no money, when he sees something fine he starts shouting, My father! My father! Did you and your father come together?
Okirikiri k’ana gba ukwu ose, anaghi ari ya-elu
— You only climb the pepper tree by going round it carefully.
Related words
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Same spelling, different tones
These entries fold to the same letters once tone is removed, so a tone-blind search returns all of them.
- mgbawrestling; struggle; contest; sport; wrestling (-gba 1.English wrestle)
- kì-lilook at; gaze at; witness; watch; about; up and down (always with -gba)
- pì amùcastrate; (compare -gba amù) castrate
- ògbanje(= nwa ōgbanje) (from -gba nje make several trips to and from a place; literally maker of several trips or recurrent visitor) 'repeater'; child believed to belong to a band in the world of spirits to which he/she returns in infancy; from there he goes back to his mother's womb to be born again, only to die and return to the spirit world again in infancy. Ògbanje is born several times, dying each time and returning to the world of spirits. A mother who experiences frequent child mortality is believed to be visited by a member or members of the ògbanje group. The new-born baby is regarded as the one who died last; and the child's death is to be expected any time, unless a native doctor specialist in ògbanje spirits is provided and performs successfully certain rituals which include the ògbanje object known as iyi ògbanje or iyi ùwà, on which the ògbanje swore to return to the spirit world. The place where the object is hidden is known only to the doctor and the ògbanje. (But an ògbanje can decide to stay and live to old age without the native doctor's rituals and/or propitiation to the other members of his particular ògbanje band.) Sometimes a part of the dead ògbanje's body, e.g. a finger or an ear, is amputated, and as proof that it was the same child who returns next time it is believed that such amputated parts are missing on the new baby's body. The amputation of parts of the body is done in the belief that the ògbanje would feel the pain and/or shame and on the next return to the world would remember it and refuse to die again. An ògbanje who stays is given excessive petting and care to the disadvantage of the other children. The parents who have suffered greatly at the hands of the ògbanje and become improverished do everything possible in order to prevent a recurrence of the bitter experience. The ògbanje behaves in his own peculiar way. Sometimes his character and physical features may bear no resemblance to those of any member of the family. The surviving ògbanje sometimes exploits this difference and the special treatment of his parents ruthlessly and selfishly by, for instance, demanding that a particular kind of clothes must be bought for him, otherwise the parents run the risk of losing him. Certain proper names are often though not invariably given to surviving ògbanjes. The names are believed to help in preventing the ògbanje from returning to the world of spirits. The names include Nònyelụm stay with me; Nwoōsu the son of òsu (but this does not make such a child an òsu. It is meant to bring shame on the ògbanje as explained above).
- oke ọnūof great price; costly; expensive; dear gba Christmas na-abịa I am going to buy my wife costly clothes for the celebration of next Christmas; precious redeemed by Christ's precious blood different previous metals in our king's court; big mouth (used to describe a talkative person) nà-èkwu okwū My servant is a chatterbox; he talks all the time and everywhere
- gba ǹkịtìkeep silence; refrain from answering (compare -gba duu)
- tọgbò duulie still; lie down softly (compare -gba duu); lie still; lie down softly (compare -gba duu, be silent, still)
- tụ mgbelētrade; retail; trade; retail (compare -gba mgbelē)
- cha n'anwūbe apparent, obvious, conspicuous; be apparent, obvious, conspicuous (compare -gba n’anwū)
- ògbaā tumtummotor-cycle (-gba 1. C.iii 'shoot' + noun agent prefix + tumtum 'sound of motor-cycle')