bamboo

Etymology

It is borrowed from Dutch bamboes,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which gave the earlier English forms bambos, bambus and bambous; their final -s was later taken as a plural ending and dropped.^[4][3][2][6] The Dutch word is related to Portuguese bambu, earlier mambu,^[7][8][9] the form in which the Portuguese wrote the word in the Konkan in the 16th century,^[9][10] and to New Latin bambūsa.^[9][4] The OED notes that Dutch seems to have been the first European language with initial b-, and that the final -s is unexplained.^[9] Most sources trace the word to Malay: Malay bambu according to Barnhart, Merriam-Webster and Collins,^[8][11][12] mambu according to Ayto and the ODE,^[6][5] and perhaps samambu, a kind of cane, according to Etymonline and Weekley.^[7][13] The OED, however, finds the Malay word only in Central Sumatra, and in Sundanese and Javanese, and reports that some take it as a loan there from a Kannada word;^[9] Barnhart, Merriam-Webster and Hoad also point to a Dravidian source in southern India.^[8][11][3] Hobson-Jobson calls the origin exceedingly obscure, notes that the usual Malay word is buluh, and quotes Rumphius's suggestion that the name imitates the cracking of the stems when they burn.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A giant tropical grass, and its stem used as a stick or as material: 1598, in W. Phillip's translation of Linschoten's Discours of Voyages.^[9][8] Merriam-Webster gives an earlier first use, 1586.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the form mambu had a brief currency in English in the 17th and 18th centuries,^[6] and Skeat cites it from 1662.^[14] Johnson (1755) described bamboo as "an Indian plant of the reed kind".^[15] Hobson-Jobson calls it one of the commonest words in Anglo-Indian daily use.^[10] From 1787 bamboo was also the name of a cane-coloured porcelain biscuit made by Wedgwood;^[9][4] since the mid 19th century it has also named a light yellowish brown.^[4] The verb meant to beat someone with a bamboo cane from 1816, and to furnish with bamboo laths from 1925.^[9] The Bamboo Curtain, the barrier between Communist China and the West, was named after the iron curtain in 1949.^[7][4] In American slang bamboo meant nonsense (1903) and an opium pipe (1910),^[16] and as an adjective it was used of Westerners who had "gone native" in the Far East.^[16][11]

Timeline

• 1586 – first known use, in Merriam-Webster.^[11]
• 1598 – the giant grass and its stem.^[9][8]
• 1662 – the form mambu, cited by Skeat.^[14]
• 1787 – Wedgwood's cane-coloured porcelain.^[9]
• 1816 – verb, to beat with a bamboo cane.^[9]
• 1949 – Bamboo Curtain.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tall, fast-growing tropical or subtropical grass of the genus Bambusa and related genera, with hollow, woody, jointed stems.^[12][11][9]
2. The stem of this plant, used for building, furniture, poles and canes.^[12][9][4]
3. A light yellowish-brown colour.^[4]
4. A cane-coloured porcelain biscuit made by Wedgwood; also called bamboo ware.^[9][4]

Adjective

1. Made of bamboo: a bamboo screen.^[12][11]
2. Of a Westerner in the Far East: having dropped Western habits.^[11][16]

Verb

1. To beat someone with a bamboo cane.^[9]

Word family

• Bamboo Curtain
• bamboo shoot

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Yule, Henry; Burnell, A. C. (1903), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, new ed. by William Crooke, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com