mumbo jumbo

• mumbo-jumbo

Probably from Mandinka maamajomboo (“mask; masked dancer”); or perhaps from /l/-vocalization in the words "mumble" and "jumble".

• IPA^(key): /mʌmbəʊˈdʒʌmbəʊ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmbəʊ

mumbo jumbo (countable and uncountable, plural mumbo jumbos)

1. (historical) A deity or other supernatural being said to have been worshipped by certain West African peoples; an idol.
   • 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Symbols”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. , London: Chapman and Hall, , →OCLC, 3rd book, page 155:

     So likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his Eddas, must withdraw into dimness; and many an African Mumbo-Jumbo and Indian Pawpaw be utterly abolished.

2. (religion) Any object of superstition; religious words and/or actions which are seen as superstitious or fraudulent.

   Rev. Quack's healing services are little more than mumbo jumbo.

   • 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 91:

     "And what have you got to say? Another lot of mumbo-jumbo like your learned associates over there?"

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 179:

     What is going on in all this religious mumbo-jumbo that is so foreign to the positivism of contemporary scholarship is a reenactment of the history of the soul before the beginning of terrestrial evolution.

3. (by extension) Any confusing or meaningless speech; nonsense, gibberish.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense

   Football lingo is mumbo jumbo to me.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 89:

     He escaped from that experience confounded, horrified, and conscious of degradation. Those infernal bandogs of the law had treated him as a piece of insensate property to their drivelling mumbo-jumbo, as if mere contact with it had robbed him of all rights to the dignity and integrity of his own ego.

   • 1985, Robert Hayden, “Frederick Douglass”, in Collected Poems:

     When it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, / Reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more / Than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:

   • 2020 February 3, Rowena Mason, “Boris Johnson hints at allowing GM food imports from US”, in The Guardian‎:

     He also said Britain would be “governed by science, not mumbo-jumbo” when looking at whether imported food was acceptable for consumption in the UK.

• “mumbo jumbo”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “mumbo jumbo”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.