noun

• (chiefly in the plural) A member of an ethnic group or tribe living mainly in southwest Nigeria, southern Benin, and eastern Togo and, as well as in communities elsewhere in West Africa, Brazil and Cuba.
• A sub-Saharan language. It belongs to the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family, and has nearly 40 million speakers in Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Sierra Leone, as well as communities in Brazil and Cuba.
• An African traditional religion which spawned various offshoots in the Americas in the 15th to 19th centuries, including santería and Lucumí. (See Yoruba religion.)