posho

Meanings

1. 1noununcountable

   A stiff white porridge made from ground maize, eaten as a staple food in parts of East Africa.

   Grammar: Uncountable, so it has no plural and takes a singular verb: Posho is cheap.

   Patterns

   • eat posho
   • cook posho
   • posho and beans

   She cooked a big pot of posho for the family's evening meal.

   In many villages, posho is eaten with beans or green vegetables.

   The school gives the children posho and milk at lunchtime.

2. 2noununcountable

   Ground maize flour of the kind used to make this porridge.

   Grammar: Also uncountable; often used before another noun, as in a posho mill.

   Patterns

   • a bag of posho
   • posho flour
   • a posho mill

   He bought two bags of posho from the shop on the corner.

   The price of posho went up after the poor harvest.

   She took the maize to the posho mill to be ground.

Common combinations

posho and beans

Lunch was posho and beans, which kept them full all afternoon.

a posho mill

The new posho mill saves the women hours of grinding by hand.

cook posho

It takes about twenty minutes to cook posho properly.

a bag of posho

Prices rose, so a bag of posho cost more than last year.

posho flour

She mixed posho flour with water before putting it over the fire.

Synonyms and how they differ

ugali

The usual name for this dish in Kenya and Tanzania; posho is the common word in Uganda.

nsima

The name used in Malawi and Zambia for a similar maize porridge.

mealie meal

South African English for the maize flour itself, rather than the cooked dish.

Commonly confused: posho or posh?

Practice

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