Balafon

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A wooden-keyed percussion idiophone of West Africa that is struck with two padded sticks.

    "He is performing here with his Symmetric Orchestra, an ensemble of West African musicians who play both traditional instruments (kora, balafon, bolombatto, djembe) and slightly more contemporary ones (guitars, keyboards)."

Synonyms

All synonyms
balabalabalaphone

Example

More examples

"Famous vibraphonist Stefon Harris has recorded at least one balafon solo."

Etymology

From Mandinka balafoŋo.

Related phrases

percussion idiophonewest africa

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.