Tamada
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A toastmaster at a feast in the Caucasus, especially in Georgia. Georgia
"We have the custom of a toastmaker – the tamada, we call him. For the sake of order, he proposes all the toasts. Will you support me as tamada?"
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"We have the custom of a toastmaker – the tamada, we call him. For the sake of order, he proposes all the toasts. Will you support me as tamada?"
Etymology
Borrowed from Georgian თამადა (tamada), from (Proto-?)Circassian *tħamada (compare Adyghe тхьаматэ (tḥamatɛ, “foreman of a village; boss; master; chairman; (dated) husband”), Kabardian тхьэмадэ (tḥɛmadɛ, “foreman of a village; boss; master; chairman; (dialectal) bridegroom, wooer”)), probably from Ottoman Turkish داماد (damat, “bridegroom; son-in-law; sovereign's brother-in-law”) (from Persian داماد (dâmâd, “bridegroom; son-in-law; father-in-law; sovereign's brother-in-law; lover, wooer”)) with the ending reshaped under the influence of Kabardian адэ (adɛ, “father”). The suggestion that the word is derived from a blend of თავი (tavi, “head”) + მაგიდა (magida, “table”) (in the sense of a person at the head of a table) is a folk etymology.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.