Zamboni
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An ice resurfacing machine used to groom skating rinks, especially for professional use.
"For quotations using this term, see Citations:Zamboni."
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of Zamboni. alt-of
"I bet you a hundred bucks you can't drive the zamboni to the top of those stairs."
- 3 the trademark for a machine that smooths the ice in an ice-skating rink wordnet
Example
More examples"Anteo Zamboni, a 15 year old boy, after apparently having shot at Mussolini, was immediately lynched and killed."
Etymology
From the surname of the inventor, Frank J. Zamboni, and his brand of such machines. Zamboni was originally (and may still be) a trademark of Frank J. Zamboni & Co. Inc.. Its use in the general sense is an example of trademark erosion. The surname itself is of Italian origin, as a northeastern dialectal variant (possibly Venetan) of Giambono, comprised of a reduced form of Gianni (from Giovanni (“John”)) + Bono or buono (“good”). Frank Zamboni's father originated from Arsio in Trentino, northern Italy.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.