mongo

¹

or mon·goe

[ mong-goh ]

noun

, plural mon·gos.

1. mungo.

mongo

²

[ mong-goh ]

noun

, plural mon·go, mon·gos.

1. an aluminum coin and monetary unit of the Mongolian People's Republic, one 100th of a tugrik.

Mongo

³

[ mong-goh ]

noun

1. a member of any of various agricultural peoples of the central Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2. the Bantu language of the Mongo peoples.

möngö

¹

/ ˈmɒŋɡəʊ /

noun

1. a Mongolian monetary unit worth one hundredth of a tugrik

mongo

²

/ ˈmɒŋɡəʊ /

noun

1. See mungo
   a variant of mungo

Word History and Origins

Origin of mongo¹

First recorded in 1935–40; from modern Mongolian möngö, from mönggün “silver, money”

Example Sentences

Part of the exhibit was a sample of “mongo,” which describes something pulled from the garbage for reusing.

From The Daily Beast

But when it does, Molina will have a nice sampling of pre-curated mongo, ready for a larger audience.

From The Daily Beast

"Good ting to hab de larsh mout, Misser Mongo,—eat de more—lib de longer," said Billy.

From Project Gutenberg

Under my window I have two big jars,—one full of mongo,3 the other of very fine sand.

From Project Gutenberg

The king, just arisen from bed, looked out of the window, and was astounded to see the mongo and sand perfectly assorted.

From Project Gutenberg

Originally it must have been either gravel and mongo, or else mongo and some other kind of lentil nearly resembling it in size.

From Project Gutenberg

It came to pass that, out of the forty slaves brought in the caravan, the Mongo rejected eight.

From Project Gutenberg

About This Word

What else does mongo mean?

Mongo can be a slang term for “huge” or “extremely.”

In another, unrelated sense, mongo or mong can be a slur for a “stupid” person.

Mongo is also used in New York to describe items picked from the trash.

Where does mongo come from?

Used as a slur, mongo likely stems from Mongoloid, a term once applied to people with Down syndrome. John Langdon Down, the doctor who first classified his now-eponymous Down syndrome, called the genetic disorder Mongolian idiocy. In 1961, doctors proposed to the medical journal The Lancet that the condition be renamed Down syndrome. The World Health Organization endorsed this change, but some, even hospital staffers, continued to call people with Down syndrome mongol and mongoloid into the 1980s.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang records mong and mongo as insults, roughly equivalent to “idiot,” in the 1970s. Green’s also notes that Mongo is often used as the name of idiot henchman characters in film. The 1974 Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles included an oafish character named Mongo, played by NFL player Alex Karras. While this Mongo may draw from the derogatory connotations of mongo, the nickname in the film is apparently a pun on Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaria, for at one point in the film, a character sees Mongo and exclaims, “Mongo! Santa Maria!” Chicago Bears player Steve McMichael was nicknamed Mongo by his teammates, after the Blazing Saddles character.

According to Green’s, mongo came to mean “huge” in the 1980s and is probably clipped from humongous. The slang expanded to mean “excellent.” A 1996 travel guide to Latin America, for example, describes where to find “mongo bottles of Cerveza Regia” and “the mongo Cerron Grande mountain.” By the 1980s, mongo emerges among New York sanitation workers as a collective name for items picked from the trash. According to a 1984 article in the art journal Issue, sanitation workers furnished their workplaces by “mongo-picking.” The practice and the name eventually spread to other New Yorkers. In 2004, author Ted Botha wrote a book Mongo: Adventures in Trash, which explores the subculture of mongo–picking. The New York Times notably profiled a mongo-picker in 2006. The origin of the slang is obscure, though a variant of the term, mungo, is found by 1983.

How is mongo used in real life?

Mongo and mong are still sometimes used as insults, similar to “idiot.” Many argue, however, that the use of the term is a slur to both Mongolians and people with Down syndrome.

In 2011, comedian Ricky Gervais was widely criticized for using mong as an insult. Although Gervais argued that the meaning of the word had shifted and he would never use it to describe a person with Down syndrome, a BBC America columnist compared Gervais’s mong to the use of retard as an insult. Gervais later apologized for using the term.

Mongo, for “huge,” can be an adjective (a mongo pay raise) or adverb (he was mongo drunk). It was more common among teens and college students in the 1990s. Mongolito, a term of endearment for a “buddy,” may be a mock Spanish embellishment of this mongo.

Mongo, meaning “salvaged trash,” is still primarily used in and associated with New York City. It can be used as a noun (“reclaimed discarded items”) or verb (“to pick such discarded items”).

Note

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.