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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  

[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

Mau Maus 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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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

Example Sentences

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