Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

timba

American  
[teem-buh] / ˈtim bə /

noun

timbas plural
  1. a genre of Cuban dance music with fast, complex rhythms, influenced by salsa, son cubano, Afro-Cuban folk music, and American R&B and funk.

  2. a long, tapered hand drum used in many genres of Latin American music.


Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

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:

Both 72, they call the event Los Tradicionales — “the traditional ones” — because their goal is to help preserve Cuba’s rich dance heritage, from rumba to timba to casino, an ancestor of salsa.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 4, 2026

In the film, Arce acknowledges his exasperation with reggaeton — though he likes to dance to the genre-mashing timba of Los Van Van, the legendary Cuban band led by the late Juan Formell.

From Los Angeles Times Nov. 12, 2021

With Ola Fresca, the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mr. Conde draws from a variety of Afro-Latin traditions, tossing son, salsa and timba into a nonacademic stew, ready for the street fair, dance club or concert hall.

From New York Times Sep. 21, 2017

To help organise the concert, they called on the help of timba star Isaac Delgado.

From The Guardian Mar. 25, 2016

This contrivance is called by the natives timba.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 10 of 55 1597-1599 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 Robertson, James Alexander

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training