Word.ws English Dictionary

tamada

Syllables: ta·ma·da/ˈtɑːmədə/US/ˈtɑmədə/

tamada noun: a toastmaster at a feast in the Caucasus, especially in Georgia.

tamada: a toastmaster at a feast in the Caucasus, especially in Georgia
Image: Niko Pirosmani, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tamada (plural tamadas)

  1. (Georgia) A toastmaster at a feast in the Caucasus, especially in Georgia.
    • We have the custom of a toastmaker – the tamada, we call him. For the sake of order, he proposes all the toasts. Will you support me as tamada?1977, Bart McDowell, Journey across Russia: The Soviet Union Today, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, →ISBN, page 223
    • The tamada—the master of ceremonies—with practised skill opened a bottle and poured out half a glassful for himself with the explanation, "The tamada must drink first. If there's poison in this glass you'll soon know of it and save yourself."1982, Soviet Literature: A Monthly Journal of the Union of Writers of the U.S.S.R., Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 24

Examples of tamada in a sentence

  • A good tamada has a number of special qualities.1989, Dee Ann Holisky, The Annual of the Society for the Study of Caucasia, Chicago, Ill.: The Society for the Study of Caucasia, →OCLC...
  • This tamada had excellent rhetorical skills; he was fluent in both Russian and Kyrgyz and knew the languages of humor and honor.2017, Aksana Ismailbekova, “Rahim’s Victory Feast: Political Patronage and Kinship in Solidarity”, in Blood Ties and the Native Son...

Forms of tamada

pluraltamadas

Origin of tamada

Borrowed from Georgian თამადა (tamada), from (Proto-?)Circassian *tħamada (compare West Circassian тхьаматэ (tḥamatɛ, “foreman of a village; boss; master; chairman; (dated) husband”), East Circassian тхьэмадэ (tḥɛmadɛ, “foreman of a village; boss; master; chairman; (dialectal) bridegroom, wooer”)), possibly from Persian داماد (dâmâd, “bridegroom; son-in-law; father-in-law; sovereign's brother-in-law; lover, wooer”) with the ending reshaped under the influence of East Circassian адэ (adɛ, “father”). The suggestion that the word is derived from a blend of თავი (tavi, “head”) + მაგიდა (magida, “table”) (in the sense of a person at the head of a table) is a folk etymology.

Questions about tamada

What does tamada mean?
Tamada means a toastmaster at a feast in the Caucasus, especially in Georgia.
How do you use tamada in a sentence?
A good tamada has a number of special qualities.
What part of speech is tamada?
Tamada is a noun.
How do you pronounce tamada?
Tamada is pronounced /ˈtɑːmədə/ (UK).
What is the plural of tamada?
The plural of tamada is tamadas.

Words near tamada in the dictionary

  1. tamability
  2. tamable
  3. tamableness
  4. Tamachek
  5. tamacoare
  6. tamada
  7. tamadas
  8. tamago
  9. tamagotchi
  10. tamagotchis
  11. tamagoyaki

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tamada (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tamada1.wav.

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