kobo

See also: kọbọ, kòbo, kōbō, and Kōbō

English

Etymology

Ultimately from English copper, probably via one or more West African languages (compare Igbo kọbọ̀ and Fula kobo).^[1]

Noun

kobo (plural kobos or kobo)

A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Nigerian naira.
- 2023, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, A Spell of Good Things, Canongate Books, page 182:
  How much would those ones drop in his bowl? Tattered, dirty, sellotaped five-naira notes? Those coins that had just been reintroduced but were useless, because not even bàbá dúdú was sold for fifty kobo or one naira anymore? Was one naira actually money if you could not even buy sweets with it?
A coin with the value of one kobo; (by extension) a very small amount of money.
- 1972 October 9, The Times, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, Nigeria Supplement, page viii, column 4; quoted in “kobo”, in R[obert] W[illiam] Burchfield, editor, A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, volume II (H–N), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, 1976, published 1983, →ISBN, page 540, column 1:
  The new kobo is the same size as the old Nigerian shilling and carries a depiction of cocoa seeds.
- 1982 February, “‘We Are Suffering’”, in The Entertainer, Ibadan, →OCLC, page 5; quoted in Christopher Alan Waterman, “The Social Organization and Contexts of Jùjú Performance in Ibadan”, in Jùjú: A Social History and Ethnography of an African Popular Music (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology), Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1990, →ISBN, page 151:
  In this case, more people buy cassettes than records with the consequence of the musicians losing heavily on their records royalties since these pirates will not give a kobo [penny] to any artiste whose record he recorded for sale.
- 1984, George Packer, “A Boulangerie in Lagos”, in The Village of Waiting (Vintage Departures), New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, published August 1988, →ISBN, chapter 8 (Three Africas), page 184:
  No one ever had coins, nothing less than a one-naira bill; the driver had laughed at my handful of kobo.
- 1989, Olu Obafemi, “Zulu Sofola’s Theatre”, in Henrietta C. Otokunefor, Obiageli C. Nwodo, editors, Nigerian Female Writers: A Critical Perspective, Lagos: Malthouse Press, →ISBN, section II (The Dramatists), page 64:
  In the play, lawyer Ramoni Alao, because of his nagging wife, decides to go to the market to get special clothes for “Ileya” without a kobo in his pocket.
- 1992 October 17, Frances Bissell, “Exotic fruits and roots”, in The Times, number 64,466, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, Weekend section, page 5, column 1:
  The market traders, all women, touted their wares in fine voice. I would usually part with a few kobos, or copper pennies, for a small, dusty heap of tomatoes, or a larger pile of oranges.
- 2010, Síkírù Káyọ̀dé Adétọ̀nà, “Building a new ààfin”, in Awùjalẹ̀: The Autobiography of Ọba Síkírù Káyọ̀dé Adétọ̀nà Ọgbágbá II cfr, Ibadan: Mosuro, →ISBN, page 123:
  At this launch, Chief Odutola’s younger brother, Alhaji Jimoh Odutola, who is also a successful businessman, was present from the beginning to the end, but he neither gave nor pledged a kobo in spite of my previous personal appeals.
- 2017, Patience Ibrahim with Andrea C. Hoffmann, translated by Shaun Whiteside, “Back to the beginning”, in A Gift from Darkness: How I Escaped with my Daughter from Boko Haram, London: Little, Brown, →ISBN, page 32:
  Then he would guiltily ask my mother to beg for alms outside the churches in the surrounding villages so that we wouldn’t starve. Because she was blind, people would always give her a few kobos (small coins).