Gobo
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A screen (often in disc form) placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to diffuse the glare.
"At the other extreme, with limitless budgets all they have to do is dream up amazing lighting rigs to be constructed and operated by the huge team of gaffers and sparks, with their generators, discharge lights, flags, gobos and brutes."
- 2 The taproot of young edible burdock plants (Arctium lappa), eaten as a root vegetable. uncountable
"While oriental and specialty markets sell Gobo root to Japanese cooks, herbal medicine enthusiasts use common burdock."
- 3 A device used to shield a microphone from extraneous sounds.
- 4 A template inserted over a light source to control the shape of the thrown light.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"My child cannot say "Kinpira style sauteed Gobo", he always says "Pinkira style sauteed Bogo" instead."
Etymology
Uncertain; possibly from go-b(etween) (“intermediary, middleman”) + -o (suffix forming informal terms).
Borrowed from Japanese ごぼう, ゴボウ, 牛蒡 (gobō, “burdock (Arctium lappa); burdock root”), from Middle Chinese 牛蒡 (ŋɨu pɑŋ^X, “burdock”) (modern Mandarin 牛蒡 (niúbàng)), from 牛 (ŋɨu, “ox”) + 蒡 (pɑŋ^X, a word only appearing in the compound 牛蒡), possibly because oxen have been observed eating the leaves of the plant when recovering from illness.
Related phrases
More for "gobo"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.