bamboo
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bamboo
- /bæmˈbu/
- /ˈbæːm.buː/ India
- /ˈbambu/ Philippines
Rhymes with -uː
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Dutch bamboe, from Portuguese bambu, from Malay bambu, from Kannada ಬಂಬು (bambu), variant form of ಬೇವು (bēvu). Cognate with Malayalam വേപ്പ് (vēppŭ), Tamil வேம்பு (vēmpu), Telugu వేప (vēpa), from Proto-Dravidian *wēmpu (“neem”).
noun bamboos · bambou · bambu
- Any of the fast-growing grasses of the Bambusoideae subfamily, characterized by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem. However, the late Hsia and the Shang were considerably warmer, possibly comparable to Hang-chou today, an area where bamboo proliferates.
- Wood of the bamboo plant as a material for building, furniture, etc.
- A stick, rod, pole, or cane of bamboo, especially one used as a vessel for liquids, or as a tool for corporal punishment. It was evident that Europeans seldom came here, for numbers of women skeltered away as I walked through the village and one girl about ten or twelve years old, who had just brought a bamboo full of water from the river, threw it down with a cry of horror and alarm the moment she caught sight of me,
- A didgeridoo.
- A member of the British military or British East India Company who spent so much time in Indonesia, India, or Malaysia that they never returned home.
adjective bambou · bambu
- Made of the wood of the bamboo.
verb bamboos · bambooing · bambooed · bambou · bambu
- To flog with a bamboo cane. […] the beadle is punished by fine, and sometimes bambooed, if robberies are too frequent within his jurisdiction, or if he fails to secure the person of any malefactor particularly wanted by his superior officers.
- To paint (furniture, etc.) to give it the appearance of bamboo. The craze for bambooing furniture and accessories was one of many popular paint techniques in the 18th century and early Victorian era.
- To penetrate sexually. If you're just a girl from Lucknow, with no fluid cash, you'll be just one more among thousands going from producer to producer by auto-rickshaw, and every photographer who agrees to take a picture for your portfolio will want to introduce you to his bed upstairs in the loft. And what you'll get out
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: woody, wood, whisker, dart, bam, hsinchu, zhu, chuk, cane, pole, shoot, stalk, culm, reed, chusquea, pleioblastus
Translations
Every language
noun plant
| Español | bambúes |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 대나무 daenamu |
| 日本語 | 竹 take |
| 中文 | 竹子 zhúzi |
| हिन्दी | बांस bāns, बाँस bā̃s |
| Kiswahili | mwanzi |
| Português | bambus |
| Français | bambou |
| Deutsch | Bambusse |
| Italiano | bambù |
| Ελληνικά | μπαμπού bampoú |
| Română | bambus, bambu |
| Русский | бамбу́к bambúk |
| Tiếng Việt | tre |
| العربية | خَيْزَرَان ḵayzarān, خَيْزُرَان ḵayzurān |
| עברית | בַּמְבּוּק bambuk, חִזְרָן khizran |
noun wood
| Español | bambú |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | 竹 take, 竹材 takezai |
| 中文 | 竹子 zhúzi, 竹材 zhúcái |
| Português | bambu |
| Français | bambou |
| Deutsch | Bambus, Bambusrohr |
| Italiano | bambù |
| Русский | бамбу́к bambúk, бамбу́ковая трость bambúkovaja trostʹ |
| עברית | במבוק bambuq, חִזְרָן khizran |
adj made of bamboo
| 日本語 | 竹製の takesei no |
|---|---|
| Português | de bambu |
| Français | de bambou |
| Italiano | di bambù |
| Русский | бамбу́ковый bambúkovyj |
Talk about this word "bamboo." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/bamboo. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. bamboo. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/bamboo "bamboo." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/bamboo.Cite this
@misc{bamboo_2026,
title = {bamboo},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/bamboo},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
