Word.ws English Dictionary

mambo

/ˈmæmbəʊ/US/ˈmɑmboʊ/

mambo noun: a voodoo priestess (in Haiti).

Noun

mambo (countable and uncountable, plural mambos or mamboes)

  1. A voodoo priestess (in Haiti)
    • The mambo next presented a container of water to the cardinal points, then poured libations to the centerpost of the peristyle, the axis along which the spirits were to enter.1985, Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Simon & Schuster, page 47
    • The manbo showed her how to take small handfuls of liquid and spread it on her skin always moving in the upward direction.1995, Karen McCarthy Brown, in Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, South Sea International Press 1998, p. 219
  2. A Latin-American musical genre, adapted from rumba, originating from Cuba in the 1940s, or a dance or rhythm of this genre.

Verb

mambo (third-person singular simple present mambos, present participle mamboing, simple past and past participle mamboed)

  1. (intransitive) To perform this dance.

mambo meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Arabic

mambo in Hindi

Latin American music genre
मम्बो mambo, मैम्बो maimbo

mambo in Marathi

Latin American music genre
माम्बो māmbo

mambo in Urdu

Latin American music genre
میمبو maimbo

mambo in Arabic

Latin American music genre
مَامْبُو mambū
More languagesFewer languages
mambo in Thai
แมมโบ maem-boh

Forms of mambo

Noun
pluralmambos
pluralmamboes
alternative formmanbo
Verb
third-person singular presentmambos
present participlemamboing
past participlemamboed
pastmamboed

Plural of mambo: mambos

Origin of mambo

From Haitian Creole manbo (“voodoo priestess”) (ultimately from Yoruba mambo (“to talk”)), in later senses via Cuban Spanish mambo (“dance”).

Words formed from mambo

Words that rhyme with mambo

Questions about mambo

What does mambo mean?
Mambo means a voodoo priestess (in Haiti).
What is mambo in Hindi?
Mambo in Hindi is मम्बो (mambo), मैम्बो (maimbo). See Mambo meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is mambo?
Mambo can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce mambo?
Mambo is pronounced /ˈmæmbəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of mambo?
The plural of mambo is mambos.

Words near mambo in the dictionary

  1. Mamberamo
  2. Mambila
  3. Mambilas
  4. Mambiloid
  5. Mamble
  6. mambo
  7. mambo sauce
  8. mamboed
  9. mamboes
  10. Mambog
  11. Mambog-Mandama

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mambo (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-mambo.wav.

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