bamboo
/bæmˈbu/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
India/ˈbæːm.buː/
bamboo noun: any of the fast-growing grasses of the Bambusoideae subfamily, characterized by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem.
Noun
bamboo (countable and uncountable, plural bamboos)
- Any of the fast-growing grasses of the Bambusoideae subfamily, characterized by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem.
- However, the late Hsia and the Shang were considerably warmer, possibly comparable to Hang-chou today, an area where bamboo proliferates.2011, Ralph D. Sawyer, Ancient Chinese Warfare, Basic Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 490
- Wood of the bamboo plant as a material for building, furniture, etc.
- A stick, rod, pole, or cane of bamboo, especially one used as a vessel for liquids, or as a tool for corporal punishment.
- It was evident that Europeans seldom came here, for numbers of women skeltered away as I walked through the village and one girl about ten or twelve years old, who had just brought a bamboo full of water from the river, threw it down with a cry of horror and alarm the moment she caught sight of me...1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 102
- A didgeridoo.
- A member of the British military or British East India Company who spent so much time in Indonesia, India, or Malaysia that they never returned home.
Adjective
bamboo (not comparable)
- Made of the wood of the bamboo.
Verb
bamboo (third-person singular simple present bamboos, present participle bambooing, simple past and past participle bambooed)
- To flog with a bamboo cane.
- […] the beadle is punished by fine, and sometimes bambooed, if robberies are too frequent within his jurisdiction, or if he fails to secure the person of any malefactor particularly wanted by his superior officers.1880, Herbert Giles, transl., Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, London: Thomas de la Rue & Co., Vol. II, p. 18, footnote
- To paint (furniture, etc.) to give it the appearance of bamboo.
- The craze for bambooing furniture and accessories was one of many popular paint techniques in the 18th century and early Victorian era.1994, Penny Swift, The Complete Book of Paint Techniques, New Holland, page 67
- To penetrate sexually.
- If you're just a girl from Lucknow, with no fluid cash, you'll be just one more among thousands going from producer to producer by auto-rickshaw, and every photographer who agrees to take a picture for your portfolio will want to introduce you to his bed upstairs in the loft. And what you'll get...2006, Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games, Penguin, published 2008
- One scene of attachment and intimacy shows Vijay careening into their shared apartment dead drunk and insulting a praying Ajay for his devotion to the household god, Hanuman […], saying that instead of being rescued Ajay will be "bamboo-ed," a popular slang for anal penetration.2013, Nandini Bhattacharya, chapter 5, in Hindi Cinema: Repeating the Subject, London: Routledge
bamboo meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
bamboo in Hindi
- plant
- बांस bāns, बाँस bā̃s
bamboo in Tamil
- plant
- மூங்கில் mūṅkil, வேய் vēy
bamboo in Marathi
- bamboo
- वेळू veḷū
bamboo in Urdu
- plant
- بانس bāns
More languagesFewer languages
- bamboo in Bengali
- বাঁশ bãś
- bamboo in Telugu
- వెదురు veduru
- bamboo in Malayalam
- മുള muḷa, വെതിർ vetiṟ
- bamboo in Kannada
- ಬಿದಿರು bidiru
- bamboo in Punjabi
- ਬਾਂਸ bāns
- bamboo in Gujarati
- વાંસ vā̃s, બામ્બુ bāmbu
- bamboo in Odia
- ବାଉଁଶ bāũśa, ବେଣୁ beṇu
- bamboo in Sanskrit
- वंश vaṃśa
- bamboo in Assamese
- বাঁহ bãh
- bamboo in Pashto
- باڼس
- bamboo in Tagalog
- kawayan
- bamboo in Arabic
- خَيْزَرَان ḵayzarān, خَيْزُرَان ḵayzurān
- bamboo in Malay
- buluh, bambu, aur
- bamboo in Indonesian
- buluh, bambu, aur
- bamboo in Persian
- خیزران xayzarân, نی هندی ney-e hendi
- bamboo in Thai
- ไผ่ pài, ไม้ไผ่ máai pài
- bamboo in Vietnamese
- tre
- bamboo in Myanmar
- ဝါး wa:
Examples of bamboo in a sentence
- If you ever visit the bamboo gardens, I'd like to tag along.
- I found a really nice roaster in the kitchenware aisle, plus a bamboo cutting board.
- The diet of the giant panda consists mainly of bamboo.
Forms of bamboo
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | bamboos |
| alternative form (obsolete) | bambou |
| alternative form (obsolete) | bambu |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | bamboos |
| present participle | bambooing |
| past participle | bambooed |
| past | bambooed |
Origin of bamboo
Borrowed from Dutch bamboe, from Portuguese bambu, from Malay bambu, from Kannada ಬಂಬು (bambu), variant form of ಬೇವು (bēvu). Cognate with Malayalam വേപ്പ് (vēppŭ), Telugu వేప (vēpa), from Proto-Dravidian *wēmpu (“neem”).
Words formed from bamboo
- African alpine bamboo
- African bamboo
- Andean bamboo
- arrow bamboo
- bamboo antshrike
- bamboo baksheesh
- bamboo borer
- bamboo ceiling
- bamboo clam
- bamboo coral
- Bamboo Curtain
- bamboo diplomacy
- bambooey
- bamboo fern
- bamboo grass
- bamboo hair
- bambooish
- bamboo lemur
- bamboolike
- bamboo man
- bamboo palm
- bamboo partridge
- bamboo rat
- bamboo shark
- bamboo shoot
- bamboo torture
- bamboo vine
- bambooware
- bamboo wife
- bamboo worm
- Bengal bamboo
- Bindura bamboo
- black bamboo
- broadleaf bamboo
- Buddha belly bamboo
- Calcutta bamboo
- cherry-merry-bamboo
- chino bamboo
- common bamboo
- dragon bamboo
- Drakensberg bamboo
- female bamboo
- fishpole bamboo
- giant bamboo
- giant thorny bamboo
- giant timber bamboo
- golden bamboo
- greater bamboo lemur
- heavenly bamboo
- hedge bamboo
- henon bamboo
- Indian thorny bamboo
- Kuril bamboo
- lucky bamboo
- Makino bamboo
- male bamboo
- marble bamboo
- Mexican bamboo
- Mexican weeping bamboo
- moso bamboo
Phrases with bamboo
- bamboo rats
- bamboo ferns
- bamboo palms
- bamboo vines
- bamboo wives
- spiny bamboo
- bamboo lemurs
- bamboo sharks
- bamboo shoots
- sacred bamboo
- stripe bamboo
- Bamboo English
8 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with bamboo
Questions about bamboo
- What does bamboo mean?
- Bamboo means any of the fast-growing grasses of the Bambusoideae subfamily, characterized by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem.
- What is bamboo in Hindi?
- Bamboo in Hindi is बांस (bāns), बाँस (bā̃s). See Bamboo meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is bamboo?
- Bamboo can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce bamboo?
- Bamboo is pronounced /bæmˈbu/.
- What is the plural of bamboo?
- The plural of bamboo is bamboos.
Words near bamboo in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bamboo (page history and authors); वेळू (Marathi) (page history and authors); બામ્બુ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ବାଉଁଶ (Odia) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bamboo.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bamboo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bamboo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.