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

Noun Inflected Forms

• diabolos
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of diabolo

1905–10; < Italian: literally, devil

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

diabolo diabolos

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

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 James Alexander Robertson

Man of many snipes, I will sup with thee, Deo volente et diabolo nolente, on Monday night the 5th of January, in the new year, and crush a cup to the infant century.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820 by E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas

To Muslims, he is Iblis, a word perhaps derived from the Greek diabolos, the proudest of all God's creatures.

From Time Magazine Archive

The word "devil" comes from the Greek "diabolos," which means "one prone to slander; a liar."

From The World English Bible (WEB): by Anonymous

D’Herbelot supposes this title to have been a corruption of the Greek Διαβολος, diabolos.

From Shorter Novels, Eighteenth Century The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia; The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story; Vathek, an Arabian Tale by William Beckford

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