tsotsi, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tsotsi n.

also totsi

[Sotho pron. of zoot suit n.; note Johannesburg Star, 22/2/62: ‘The term “tsotsi”, meaning a criminal tough, came into use in Johannesburg in 1946 following the exhibition of a film entitled “Stormy Weather” in which the all-Negro caste [sic] wore stove-pipe trousers, wide-brimmed hats, and massive watch-chains which dangled from their gaudy vests. African youths, who adopted this kind of dress as something which was symbolic of derring-do, became known as tsotsis, the name being derived from the actual Sotho word, tsotsi meaning stovepipe trousers’]

(S.Afr.)

1. a flashily dressed township thug or gangster.

1949		Cape Times 10 Sept. 8: The ‘Tsotsi’ may be distinguished by his exceedingly narrow trousers which hardly reach his shoes, or else by his ‘zoot suit’ [DSAE].
1959		H. Bloom Transvaal Episode 33: They are tsotsis. They rob and attack their own people. [Ibid.] 321: Now an excited crowd had gathered. They were restless and sullen-looking and some of them were drunk. They were the white town’s tsotis.
1963		Casey ‘Kid’ Motsisi ‘Mita’ Casey and Co. (1978) 72: Boike is dead. The tsotsis stabbed him.
1977		J. Sikakane Window on Soweto 27: These notorious thugs are called ‘tsotsis.’.
1980		A. Fugard Tsotsi 125: An Indian chased him away from his shop door, shouting and calling him a tsotsi.
1999		Observer Mag. 30 May 23: The totsis — gangster — who roam the streets at night, shooting guns into the air and looking for anything to steal.
2000		I. van Kessel Beyond our Wildest Dreams 41: The rise of the comtsotsis (a confluence of comrades and tsotsis, or township gang members) can be traced to the period of the second emergency. [Ibid.] 202: They had their own network with other gangs of comtsotsis, or comrade gang members, in Soweto.
2007–8		Mail and Guardian (S. Afr.) 7 Dec.–3 Jan. 48: [cartoon] Ten Tsotsis Leaping.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

[1938		Rand Daily Mail 3 June 6 n.p.: The accused were members of the ‘Ishotsi’ gang, [...] composed for the specific purpose of robbery [DSAE]].
1977		J. Sikakane Window on Soweto 7: Then there is the ‘tsotsi’ (gangster) element which picks pockets.
1989		J. Hobbs Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary 171: My youngest sister Yasmin [...] runs with a tsotsi gang.
2011		IOL News (Western Cape) 8 June 🌐 [headline] Bold new role for Tsotsi star.

In compounds

tsotsi-taal (n.)

(S.Afr.) the slang used by tsotsis.

1976		Rand Daily Mail 21 Apr. 5: Ordinary young men and women [...] delight in chatting in any Black language or a Black language mixed with ‘street’ Afrikaans, commonly known as ‘Tsotsi taal’ [DSAE].
1982		M.V. Mzamane Children of Soweto 6: In our street dialect, called tsotsi-taal, the lingua franca of black youth in South Africa [...] we violated every known grammatical construction. [Ibid.] 7: We preferred to communicate in our street dialect, called tsotsi-taal.
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 70: Black dope dealers were suspicious of whites, so you had to tune them in tsotsi-taal, the half-Afrikaans patois of the streets.
2010		IOL News Western Cape) 4 Mar. 🌐 The Western Cape style of rapping was founded in 1995 by Dat (alias Archie Sopazo) who started spitting in tsotsi-taal.