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English
Etymology
From Haitian Creole manbo (“voodoo priestess”) (ultimately from Yoruba mambo (“to talk”)), in later senses via Cuban Spanish mambo (“dance”).
Pronunciation
Noun
mambo (countable and uncountable, plural mambos or mamboes)
- A voodoo priestess (in Haiti)
1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, page 47:The mambo next presented a container of water to the cardinal points, then poured libations to the centerpost of the peristyle, the axis along which the spirits were to enter.
- 1995, Karen McCarthy Brown, in Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, South Sea International Press 1998, p. 219:
- The manbo showed her how to take small handfuls of liquid and spread it on her skin always moving in the upward direction.
- May 2018, Kyrah Malika Daniels, Whiteness in the Ancestral Waters: Race, Religion, and Conversion within North American Buddhism and Haitian Vodou, The Journal of Interreligious Studies, Issue 23:
- In the 1950s, Ukrainian American filmmaker Maya Deren traveled to Haiti and became initiated as a manbo (priestess) in Haitian Vodou.
- A Latin-American musical genre, adapted from rumba, originating from Cuba in the 1940s, or a dance or rhythm of this genre.
Derived terms
Translations
Latin American music genre
Verb
mambo (third-person singular simple present mambos, present participle mamboing, simple past and past participle mamboed)
- (intransitive) To perform this dance.
Translations
See also
Anagrams
Chuabo
Noun
mambo
- chief, king
References
- Shrum, Jeff (2018) Chuwabo - Portuguese Dictionary, SIL International
Czech
Noun
mambo n
- mambo (dance)
Declension
Declension of mambo (hard neuter reducible)
Further reading
- “mambo”, in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu (in Czech)
French
Etymology
From American & Cuban Spanish mambo.
Pronunciation
Noun
mambo m (plural mambos)
- mambo (music)
- mambo (dance)
Further reading
Italian
Etymology
From American & Cuban Spanish mambo.
Pronunciation
Noun
mambo m (invariable)
- mambo (dance and music)
Portuguese
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ɐ̃bu
- Hyphenation: mam‧bo
Etymology 1
From Kimbundu mambu.
Noun
mambo m (plural mambos)
- (Angola, colloquial) thing
- Synonym: coisa
Etymology 2
From American & Cuban Spanish mambo.
Noun
mambo m (plural mambos)
- mambo (music)
- mambo (dance)
Romanian
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish mambo or French mambo.
Noun
mambo n (plural mambouri)
- mambo (music)
Declension
Spanish
Etymology
From American Spanish, likely from Haitian Creole manbo.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈmambo/
- Rhymes: -ambo
- Syllabification: mam‧bo
Noun
mambo m (plural mambos)
- mambo (music)
- mambo (dance)
Further reading
Swahili
Pronunciation
Noun
mambo
- plural of jambo
Interjection
mambo
- (colloquial) how are you?
Swedish
Etymology 1
Probably from Haitian Creole mambo.
Pronunciation
Noun
mambo c
- (dance) mambo; a type of Latin American dance
Declension
Etymology 2
Blend of mamma (“mum”) + sambo.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): (sometimes proscribed) /ˈmambʊ/, /²mamˌbuː/
Noun
mambo c
- (somewhat humorous) a person who still lives with their parents
Usage notes
- For notes on the pronunciation, see the usage notes under the entry sambo.
Declension
References
Anagrams