Word.ws English Dictionary

gobo

Syllables: go·bo/ˈɡəʊbəʊ/US/ˈɡoʊˌboʊ/

gobo noun: a screen (often in disc form) placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to diffuse the glare.

gobo: a screen (often in disc form) placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to...
Image: Michel Chauvet, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

gobo (plural gobos or goboes)

  1. A screen (often in disc form) placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to diffuse the glare.
    • At the other extreme, with limitless budgets all they have to do is dream up amazing lighting rigs to be constructed and operated by the huge team of gaffers and sparks, with their generators, discharge lights, flags, gobos and brutes.1999, Des Lyver, Graham Swainson, Basics of Video Lighting, page 103
  2. (sound engineering) A device used to shield a microphone from extraneous sounds.
  3. A template inserted over a light source to control the shape of the thrown light.

Noun (2)

gobo (uncountable)

  1. The taproot of young edible burdock plants (Arctium lappa), eaten as a root vegetable.
    • While oriental and specialty markets sell Gobo root to Japanese cooks, herbal medicine enthusiasts use common burdock.1988, Brant S. Rogers, Culinary Botany: The Essential Handbook

Forms of gobo

pluralgobos
pluralgoboes

Origin of gobo

Uncertain; possibly from go-b(etween) (“intermediary, middleman”) + -o (suffix forming informal terms).

Borrowed from Japanese ごぼう, ゴボウ, 牛蒡 (gobō, “burdock (Arctium lappa); burdock root”), from Middle Chinese 牛蒡 (ŋɨu pɑŋ^X, “burdock”) (modern Mandarin 牛蒡 (niúbàng)), from 牛 (ŋɨu, “ox”) + 蒡 (pɑŋ^X, a word only appearing in the compound 牛蒡), possibly because oxen have been observed eating the leaves of the plant when recovering from illness.

Words that rhyme with gobo

Questions about gobo

What does gobo mean?
Gobo means a screen (often in disc form) placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to diffuse the glare.
What part of speech is gobo?
Gobo is a noun.
How do you pronounce gobo?
Gobo is pronounced /ˈɡəʊbəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of gobo?
The plural of gobo is gobos.

Words near gobo in the dictionary

  1. goblinoid
  2. goblinoids
  3. goblinries
  4. goblinry
  5. goblins
  6. gobo
  7. goboes
  8. gobonated
  9. gobonee
  10. gobony
  11. goboon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gobo (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)-Vealhurl-gobo.wav.

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