Toubab

Toubab is a Central and West African name for a person of European descent ("whites"). Used most frequently in the Gambia, Senegal, and Mali, also in Ivory Coast the term does not have derogatory connotations by itself, though it is also frequently associated with "wealthy traveler" (if one can afford to travel, then he/she must be rich). The word can also be applied to any perceived traveler - even those of black African descent with an identifiably different phenotype such as (whiter) Cape Verdeans and (blacker) Nigerians, up to foreign-raised locals (thus with a different accent) or visiting expatriates. In Alex Haley's book Roots, the phrase "toubab fa" (kill toubab) is used several times.

In God's Bits of Wood, authored by Senegalese Sembene Ousmane, the natives call the French colonizers toubab (singular) or toubabs (plural).

In the fourth episode of the miniseries ROOTS, Kizzy refers to her friend as "toubab," or white.

A verb in the Wolof language meaning "to convert" ( missionaries during colonial times, being whites coming from Europe ); or that it is derived from the two bob (two shilling) coin of pre-decimalisation United Kingdom.