Word.ws English Dictionary

tamboo

UK/tamˈbuː/

tamboo noun: a temporary shelter used by soldiers during the First World War. Also the alternative form of taboo.

Noun

tamboo (plural tamboos)

  1. (historical, slang) A temporary shelter used by soldiers during the First World War.
    • We live in tamboos – a sort of cross between a cowshed and an outdoor privy.1995, Pat Barker, The Ghost Road (The Regeneration Trilogy), Penguin, published 2014, page 804
    • My servant & I ate the chocolate in the cold middle of last night, crouched under a draughty Tamboo, roofed with planks.1918 October 31, Wilfred Owen, Letter to his mother, Susan Owen

Also used as

tamboo is also the alternative form of taboo.

Forms of tamboo

pluraltamboos

Origin of tamboo

From Persian, Hindi.

Questions about tamboo

What does tamboo mean?
Tamboo means a temporary shelter used by soldiers during the First World War.
What part of speech is tamboo?
Tamboo is a noun.
How do you pronounce tamboo?
Tamboo is pronounced /tamˈbuː/ (UK).
What is the plural of tamboo?
The plural of tamboo is tamboos.

Words near tamboo in the dictionary

  1. Tambo Crossing
  2. Tambo Upper
  3. tambon
  4. Tambongon
  5. tambons
  6. tamboo
  7. Tambookee
  8. Tambookees
  9. tambookie
  10. Tambookieland
  11. Tambookies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tamboo (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:

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