sambo

US/ˈsæmboʊ/

sambo noun: a sandwich.

Noun (1)

sambo (plural sambos)

(Australia, Ireland, slang) A sandwich.

Synonyms:

sanger, sango, sammie, sammo, sarnie

Noun (2)

sambo (uncountable)

A Russian martial art and combat sport.

Noun (3) capitalized: Sambo

Sambo (plural Sambos)

(derogatory) A black person, especially one who is accommodating or servile towards whites; an Uncle Tom.
(obsolete, offensive) A person of three quarters African descent and one quarter Caucasian descent.

Proper noun capitalized: Sambo

Sambo

A nickname from the given name Samuel.
A nickname from the given name Samantha.

sambo meaning in Vietnamese

sambo in Vietnamese

martial art: xam-bô, xăm bô

Synonyms of sambo

All synonyms of sambo

Forms of sambo

plural	sambos
plural	Sambos

Origin of sambo

Abbreviation of sandwich (pronounced "samwich") + excrescent -b- + -o (colloquializing suffix).

From Russian са́мбо (sámbo), abbreviation of самооборо́на/самозащи́та без ору́жия (samooboróna/samozaščíta bez orúžija, “self-defense without weapons”).

Borrowed from Spanish zambo.

Words formed from sambo

Questions about sambo

What does sambo mean?: Sambo means a sandwich.
What is sambo in Vietnamese?: Sambo in Vietnamese is xam-bô, xăm bô. See Sambo meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is sambo?: Sambo can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sambo?: Sambo is pronounced /ˈsæmboʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of sambo?: The plural of sambo is sambos.

Words near sambo in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sambo (page history and authors); Sambo (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-sambo.ogg.

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