gumbo

English

Wikipedia

Gumbo (stew) with okra pods.

Etymology

From Bantu ngombo, kingombo (“okra plant”), possibly via Gullah. Cognate to Portuguese quiabo, Caribbean Spanish guingambó, and cognates in other Romance languages.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ʌmbəʊ

Noun

gumbo (countable and uncountable; plural gumbos)

1. (countable) The okra plant or its pods.
2. (uncountable) A soup or stew made with okra.
3. (uncountable) A fine silty soil that when wet becomes very thick and heavy.
   • 1909, Ralph Connor, The Foreigner, ch. 11:

     The team stuck fast in the black muck, and every effort to extricate them served only to imbed them more hopelessly in the sticky gumbo.

   • 1914 April, "Making Good Roads by Firing Poor Ones," Popular Mechanics, p. 567:

     There are no poorer roads in all the United States than the "gumbo" roads of the south—gumbo being the name give a certain kind of mud or clay that is particularly sticky, clings tenaciously, seems to have no bottom, and will not support any weight.

   • 1950 July 3, "Labor: Trouble at Lowland," Time:

     The red gumbo soil uttered ugly sucking sounds at the touch of a man's boot.

Synonyms

• (okra plant): okra, ladies' fingers

Translations

okra

• Portuguese: quiabeiro m (plant), quiabo m (pods)

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Kalanga

Noun

gumbo

1.  foot