Word.ws English Dictionary

mbira

mbira noun: a thumb piano, a musical instrument having a small sound box fitted with a row of tuned tabs that are plucked with the thumbs, originating among the Shona of southern Africa; any type of plucked lamellophone of the same type as the Shona instrument.

Noun

mbira (plural mbiras)

  1. A thumb piano, a musical instrument having a small sound box fitted with a row of tuned tabs that are plucked with the thumbs, originating among the Shona of southern Africa; any type of plucked lamellophone of the same type as the Shona instrument.
    • “All right, let's hear that mbira strut its stuff.” (note plays) “Stop. No. I hate it.” “We should light the studio on fire, man. Record that!” “That's why you're my idea man, Delmonaco. You're not a coward like a certain someone!”2019 April 8, Brett Cawley & Robert Maitia, “The Future Is Borax” (11:42 from the start), in American Dad!, season 15, episode 22, spoken by Roger (Seth MacFarlane)

Synonyms of mbira

Forms of mbira

pluralmbiras

Origin of mbira

Borrowed from Shona mbira (“thumb piano”).

Words formed from mbira

Questions about mbira

What does mbira mean?
Mbira means a thumb piano, a musical instrument having a small sound box fitted with a row of tuned tabs that are plucked with the thumbs, originating among the Shona of southern Africa; any type of plucked lamellophone of the same type as the Shona instrument.
What part of speech is mbira?
Mbira is a noun.
What is the plural of mbira?
The plural of mbira is mbiras.

Words near mbira in the dictionary

  1. mbila
  2. mbilas
  3. Mbini
  4. mbio
  5. MBioEnt
  6. mbira
  7. mbiras
  8. Mbisu
  9. Mbit
  10. Mbits
  11. MBL

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mbira (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: “mbira.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mbira. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.