Mambo

//ˈmæmbəʊ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A voodoo priestess (in Haiti) countable, uncountable

    "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."

  2. 2
    a Latin American dance similar in rhythm to the rumba wordnet
  3. 3
    A Latin-American musical genre, adapted from rumba, originating from Cuba in the 1940s, or a dance or rhythm of this genre. countable, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To perform this dance. intransitive
  2. 2
    dance a mambo wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dancehustlejigpriestess

Example

More examples

"Do you think you can dance the mambo?"

Etymology

From Haitian Creole manbo (“voodoo priestess”) (ultimately from Yoruba mambo (“to talk”)), in later senses via Cuban Spanish mambo (“dance”).

Related phrases

horizontal mambomambo sauce

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