mau-mau

¹ American  

[mou-mou] / ˈmaʊˌmaʊ /

verb (used with object)

Slang.

1. to terrorize, intimidate, or threaten.

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Mau Mau ² American  

[mou mou] / ˈmaʊ ˌmaʊ /

noun

plural

Mau Maus,

plural

Mau Mau

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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Etymology

Origin of mau-mau¹

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

Origin of Mau Mau²

From Kikuyu

Example Sentences

They were set up to jail activists and sympathisers during the Mau-Mau uprising of 1952-1960, in which Kahengeri, born in the 1920s and a Secretary General of the independence movement’s Veterans Association, participated.

From Reuters

The bigger, swampier game here is to rally media pressure, and to mau-mau Mr. Nunes into giving the department a veto over the memo’s release.

From The Wall Street Journal

In other words, the coordinated, partisan effort to mau-mau the electors is precisely the sort of politicking and political tampering that the Electoral College was designed to prevent.

From The Wall Street Journal

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

He didn’t exactly say that the massacre was the doing of an unreconstructed Mau-Mau descendant born in Kenya.

From Salon