The term "Tutsi" originates from the languages of the African Great Lakes region, likely from a Bantu root. It entered wider European usage through colonial administrators and ethnographers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The word itself does not have a transparent morphemic structure in English; it is a borrowed ethnonym used to designate one of the major population groups in Rwanda and Burundi. Its modern usage is firmly tied to the complex social and political history of Central Africa.

The term "Tutsi" is a simplex word. It is an exonym, a name given by outsiders, whose precise linguistic origin is uncertain but is believed to be from a Bantu language of the Great Lakes region of Africa. It functions as a proper noun identifying an ethnic group.