Word.ws English Dictionary

tumbao

tumbao noun: the basic rhythm played on the conga drum and the bass in Afro-Cuban music.

Noun

tumbao (plural tumbaos)

  1. The basic rhythm played on the conga drum and the bass in Afro-Cuban music.
    • After all, its encore introduced some new musical elements, including a pulse faintly suggestive of an Afro-Cuban tumbao.2007 February 12, Nate Chinen, “A Flamenco Master Is His Own Ensemble”, in New York Times

Forms of tumbao

pluraltumbaos

Origin of tumbao

From Cuban Spanish tumbar (“to knock off, fall”).

Questions about tumbao

What does tumbao mean?
Tumbao means the basic rhythm played on the conga drum and the bass in Afro-Cuban music.
What part of speech is tumbao?
Tumbao is a noun.
What is the plural of tumbao?
The plural of tumbao is tumbaos.

Words near tumbao in the dictionary

  1. tumbaga
  2. Tumbaga 1
  3. Tumbaga 2
  4. tumbak
  5. tumbaks
  6. tumbao
  7. tumbaos
  8. Tumbarumba
  9. Tumbaya
  10. tumbed
  11. Tumbes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tumbao (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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