sambo
Americannoun
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a term used to refer to a Black person, especially a male.
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Archaic. Also zambo a term used to refer to a Latin American of Black and Native American ancestry, or a person of Black and white ancestry.
noun
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slang an archaic and taboo word for a Black person: once used as a term of address
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archaic the offspring of a Black person and a member of another race or a mulatto
noun
Sensitive Note
Sambo was a common given name among Black people during the slavery era; it was later a neutral term for a Black person. However, after World War II, an increasing sensitivity to racial stereotypes caused the term to be perceived as demeaning and insulting.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sambo
An Americanism dating back to 1690–1700; from Colonial Spanish zambo “Black person, person of mixed race,” perhaps special use of Spanish zambo “bowlegged,” said to be from Latin scambus, from Greek skambós “crooked,” or perhaps from Kongo nzambu “monkey”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Those skills were first developed through judo and sambo before watching VHS tapes of MMA tournaments in the late 1990s and realizing he could compete with the best.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2023
Nonetheless, a slight but scrappy young boy in a city overrun with street gangs needed an edge, and at the age of 12 he took up first sambo, a Russian martial art, and then judo.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2022
He cited other examples of Putin’s “God-gifted” athleticism: “He can ride the horse, he can swim, he can skate, he can ski, he can do judo and sambo and karate.”
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 3, 2018
He is a former world champion at the martial art sambo and former president of Mongolia’s judo federation.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 15, 2018
That evening, dancing and singing to myself in the kitchen, I make twice as many sambo jelly sandwiches.
From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau
Mamita uses these sambos to make dessert on special occasions, but this year has been a par- ticularly good year for sambos, and there are more than we could possibly use.
From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
