Word.ws English Dictionary

bossa nova

/ˈbɒsə ˈnəʊvə/

bossa nova noun: a lively Brazilian dance that is similar to the samba.

Noun

bossa nova (countable and uncountable, plural bossa novas)

  1. A lively Brazilian dance that is similar to the samba.
  2. The music of that dance.
    1. A genre of music originating from Brazil, similar to a fusion of jazz and samba music, no longer closely associated with the Brazilian dance.

Forms of bossa nova

pluralbossa novas

Origin of bossa nova

From colloquial Brazilian Portuguese bossa (“inclination, propensity, trend”, literally “protuberance”) + nova (“new”). Compare the English expression new wave, or the French nouvelle vague.

Questions about bossa nova

What does bossa nova mean?
Bossa nova means a lively Brazilian dance that is similar to the samba.
What part of speech is bossa nova?
Bossa nova is a noun.
How do you pronounce bossa nova?
Bossa nova is pronounced /ˈbɒsə ˈnəʊvə/.
What is the plural of bossa nova?
The plural of bossa nova is bossa novas.

Words near bossa nova in the dictionary

  1. boss rushes
  2. boss up
  3. boss-eyed
  4. boss-ship
  5. bossa
  6. bossa nova
  7. bossa novas
  8. bossaball
  9. bossage
  10. bossages
  11. bossal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bossa nova (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-bossa nova.wav.

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