samba en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˈsɑmbə/ (General-American)
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese samba, from a Bantu language. Doublet of semba.
Meanings
- (countable, uncountable) A Brazilian ballroom dance or dance style.
-
(countable, uncountable) A Brazilian musical genre, to which the aforementioned dance is danced, which has its roots in West Africa via the slave trade.
And when the samba played, the sun would set so high / Ring through my ears and sting my eyes, your Spanish lullaby
1986, “La Isla Bonita”, in True Blue, performed by Madonna:Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888; until then, Bahia had been a major hub of the country’s slave trade. Samba started there for a reason—a fact that Veloso has returned to, obsessively, throughout his career. […] “A samba parade had turned into a brawl,” a reviewer wrote in the Times, adding that the music “suggested a more cool-headed, grown-up epilogue to the shocks of Tropicália.”
2022 February 7, Jonathan Blitzer, “How Caetano Veloso Revolutionized Brazil’s Sound and Spirit”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2022:They thought of, I don’t know, monkeys and caipirinhas and samba.”
2007 September 20, Eric Wilson, “Blame It on Rio and Gisele”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Sep 2020:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| sambas | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
samba whistle · samba school · sambadrome
Relateds
Translations (21)
pl samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · cmn 桑巴 (Brazilian ballroom dance) · el σάμπα (Brazilian ballroom dance) · de Samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · ka სამბა (Brazilian ballroom dance) · hu szamba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · cmn 森巴 (Brazilian ballroom dance) · hy սամբա (Brazilian ballroom dance) · cmn 桑巴舞 (Brazilian ballroom dance) · it samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · tl samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · tr samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · es samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · ja サンバ (Brazilian ballroom dance) · fi samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · fr samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · ru са́мба (Brazilian ballroom dance) · cs samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · sv samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · ca samba (Brazilian ballroom dance) · pt samba (Brazilian ballroom dance)