Gumbo
//ˈɡʌm.boʊ// noun
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Synonym of okra: the plant or its edible capsules. countable
- 2 a soup or stew thickened with okra pods wordnet
- 3 A soup or stew popular in Louisiana, consisting of a strong stock, meat or shellfish, a thickener (often okra), and the "Holy Trinity" of celery, bell peppers, and onions. countable
- 4 long mucilaginous green pods; may be simmered or sauteed but used especially in soups and stews wordnet
- 5 A fine silty soil that when wet becomes very thick and heavy. uncountable
"The team stuck fast in the black muck, and every effort to extricate them served only to imbed them more hopelessly in the sticky gumbo."
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- 6 tall coarse annual of Old World tropics widely cultivated in southern United States and West Indies for its long mucilaginous green pods used as basis for soups and stews; sometimes placed in genus Hibiscus wordnet
- 7 any of various fine-grained silty soils that become waxy and very sticky mud when saturated with water wordnet
Example
More examples"The goat makes the gumbo; the rabbit eats it."
Etymology
Borrowed from Louisiana French gombo, possibly via Louisiana Creole gombo, from Kimbundu ingombo, plural of kingombo (“okra”); compare Portuguese quingombó.
Related phrases
More for "gumbo"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.