Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A Brazilian dance in duple meter of African origin, performed in groups, by couples, or as a solo.
  • noun The music for this dance.
  • intransitive verb To perform this dance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A Brazilian ballroom dance.
  • verb To dance the samba.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb dance the samba
  • noun large west African tree having large palmately lobed leaves and axillary cymose panicles of small white flowers and one-winged seeds; yields soft white to pale yellow wood
  • noun music composed for dancing the samba
  • noun a lively ballroom dance from Brazil
  • noun a form of canasta using three decks of cards and six jokers

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Portuguese, perhaps from Kongo semba, dance move in which partners thrust out their bellies and touch navels.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Portuguese

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word samba.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.