diabolo

American  

[dee-ab-uh-loh] / diˈæb əˌloʊ /

noun

diabolos plural

1. a game in which a toplike object is spun, thrown, and caught by or balanced on and whirled along a string the ends of which are fastened to the ends of two sticks that are manipulated by hand.

2. the top used in this game.

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diabolo British  

/ dɪˈæbəˌləʊ /

noun

1. a game in which one throws and catches a spinning top on a cord fastened to two sticks held in the hands

2. the top used in this game

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• diabolos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of diabolo

1905–10; < Italian: literally, devil

Example Sentences

In July, a diabolo instructor, Lu Chi-hsien, and four others were detained for allegedly setting up a spy network.

From BBC • Nov. 8, 2023

Leroux says circus mania starts young; his fourth-grade daughter’s gym curriculum includes spinning diabolo sticks.

From Washington Post • Nov. 5, 2015

The Smirnovs, quick-change artists, take the stage before Ms. España and the Anastasinis assemble for diabolo, a form of juggling.

From New York Times • Nov. 2, 2014

I will learn them all to thee some day, but for the moment take this Latin which I got by heart: "Abite a me in ignem etemum qui paratus est diabolo at angelis ejus."

From Moonfleet by Falkner, John Meade

In those posters, Don Juan Cevicós was declared to have incurred the excommunication of the canon si quis suadente diabolo, for having taken Father Valdemoro from the procession the twenty-fourth of the same month.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 21 of 55 1624 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. by Robertson, James Alexander