Word.ws English Dictionary

balafon

balafon noun: a wooden-keyed percussion idiophone of West Africa that is struck with two padded sticks.

balafon: a wooden-keyed percussion idiophone of West Africa that is struck with two padded sticks
Image: Wilfredor, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

balafon (plural balafons)

  1. A wooden-keyed percussion idiophone of West Africa that is struck with two padded sticks.
    • He is performing here with his Symmetric Orchestra, an ensemble of West African musicians who play both traditional instruments (kora, balafon, bolombatto, djembe) and slightly more contemporary ones (guitars, keyboards).2009 April 17, The New York Times, “Pop Listings”, in New York Times
    Synonyms:
    bala

Synonyms of balafon

Forms of balafon

pluralbalafons

Origin of balafon

From Mandinka balafoŋo.

Questions about balafon

What does balafon mean?
Balafon means a wooden-keyed percussion idiophone of West Africa that is struck with two padded sticks.
What part of speech is balafon?
Balafon is a noun.
What is the plural of balafon?
The plural of balafon is balafons.

Words near balafon in the dictionary

  1. balaenoid
  2. balaenopterid
  3. balaenopterids
  4. balaenopteroid
  5. balaenopteroids
  6. balafon
  7. balafons
  8. balaganjur
  9. Balagate
  10. Balagatte
  11. Balagbag

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: balafon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “balafon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/balafon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.