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• mau-mau
  mau-mau

  verb (used with object)

  to terrorize, intimidate, or threaten.
• Mau Mau
  Mau Mau

  noun

  a member of a revolutionary society in Kenya, established in the early 1950s, that consisted chiefly of Kikuyu and engaged in terrorist activities in an attempt to drive out the European settlers and to give government control to the native Kenyans.

mau-mau

¹ American  

[mau-mau] / ˈmaʊˌmaʊ /

verb (used with object)

Slang.

1. to terrorize, intimidate, or threaten.

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Mau Mau ² American  

[mau mau] / ˈmaʊ ˌmaʊ /

noun

• Mau Maus,
  plural
• Mau Mau
  plural

1. a member of a revolutionary society in Kenya, established in the early 1950s, that consisted chiefly of Kikuyu and engaged in terrorist activities in an attempt to drive out the European settlers and to give government control to the native Kenyans.

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Mau Mau British  

/ ˈmaʊ ˌmaʊ /

noun

1. a secret political society consisting chiefly of Kikuyu tribesmen that was founded in 1952 to drive European settlers from Kenya by acts of terrorism

2. slang a Ugandan motorcycle policeman who directs traffic

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Mau Mau
  plural
• Mau Maus
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of mau-mau¹

1970; coined by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers; see Mau Mau

Origin of Mau Mau²

From Kikuyu

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mau-mau Mau Mau

We wrote at the time about the campaign to mau-mau the Chief, and now we know it was orchestrated.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2016

Chameleon-voiced as usual, and still given to Homeric catalogues and hang-ten metaphors, Wolfe inhabits an imaginary mau-mau character as he gleefully recalls some of the finer techniques.

From Time Magazine Archive

"This betrayal was more painful to the Mau Mau than the actual bullet of the colonial forces," he told AFP.

From Barron's ● Feb. 14, 2026

He witnessed those effects in person, growing up during Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising, an armed guerrilla insurgency that resisted British colonial rule and land ownership.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025

The Mau Mau uprising, which lasted from 1952 to 1960, touched Ngũgĩ's life in numerous, devastating ways.

From BBC ● May 28, 2025

The most notorious period of British rule came near the end, during the 1952-1960 Mau Mau revolt in central Kenya.

From Reuters ● Oct. 31, 2023

During the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s she and her family refused to build a fence around their home despite warnings that it was dangerous not to do so.

From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane

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