The term "Bantoid" was first used by Krause in 1895 for languages that showed resemblances in vocabulary to Bantu.

Joseph Greenberg, in his 1963 The Languages of Africa, defined Bantoid as the group to which Bantu belongs together with its closest relatives; this is the sense in which the term is still used today.

However, according to Roger Blench, the Bantoid languages probably do not actually form a coherent group.

[citation needed] But the work did establish Southern Bantoid as a valid genetic unit.

Southern Bantoid includes the well known and numerous Bantu languages.