Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A soup or stew thickened with okra pods.
  • noun Chiefly Mississippi Valley & Western US A fine silty soil, common in the southern and western United States, that forms an unusually sticky mud when wet.
  • noun A French patois spoken by some black people and Creoles in Louisiana and the French West Indies.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A type of soil in the southern and western United States which forms a tough, dark-colored mass in a high degree plastic and clay-like, yet sometimes consisting chiefly of silt or very fine sand. It is very sticky and difficult to till when wet, and when dry breaks into hard cuboidal lumps. See gumbo clay.
  • noun The pod of Hibiscus esculentus, also called okra.
  • noun A soup, usually of chicken, thickened with okra.
  • noun A dish made of young capsules of okra, seasoned with salt and pepper, and stewed and served with melted butter.
  • noun A patois spoken by West Indian and Louisianian creoles and negroes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A soup thickened with the mucilaginous pods of the okra; okra soup.
  • noun The okra plant or its pods.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable The okra plant or its pods.
  • noun uncountable A soup or stew made with okra.
  • noun uncountable A fine silty soil that when wet becomes very thick and heavy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of various fine-grained silty soils that become waxy and very sticky mud when saturated with water
  • noun long mucilaginous green pods; may be simmered or sauteed but used especially in soups and stews
  • noun a soup or stew thickened with okra pods
  • noun tall coarse annual of Old World tropics widely cultivated in southern United States and West Indies for its long mucilaginous green pods used as basis for soups and stews; sometimes placed in genus Hibiscus

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Louisiana French gombo, of Bantu origin; akin to Tshiluba ki-ngumbo, okra.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Bantu ngombo, kingombo ("okra plant"). Cognate to Portuguese quiabo, Caribbean Spanish guingambó, and cognates in other Romance languages.

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Examples

  • Whether the black slaves brought to America the okra or found it already existing on the continent is uncertain, but the term gumbo is undoubtedly of African origin, as also is the term mbenda (peanuts or ground-nuts), corrupted into pindar in some of the Southern States.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913

  • I've only used okra in gumbo so now I can be a groundbreaker with my local Toronto foodie pals.

    Spicy pickled okra | Homesick Texan Homesick Texan 2009

  • However, golfs don't do well in gumbo, neither do skeets.

    Golfing With A Shotgun 2009

  • Women unable to feed the bellies of hungry children, were forced to rummage through garbage, and by the grace of God, and anointed creativity, found leftovers okra, rice, tomato, a scrap of pork and a fragment of shrimp to create a meal we call gumbo.

    Rev. Otis Moss III: A Blue Note Gospel Rev. Otis Moss III 2011

  • However, golfs don't do well in gumbo, neither do skeets.

    Golfing With A Shotgun 2009

  • Women unable to feed the bellies of hungry children, were forced to rummage through garbage, and by the grace of God, and anointed creativity, found leftovers okra, rice, tomato, a scrap of pork and a fragment of shrimp to create a meal we call gumbo.

    Rev. Otis Moss III: A Blue Note Gospel Rev. Otis Moss III 2011

  • The gumbo is served, followed by the most tender and tasty meat imaginable with sides of sangre and the cooked large grain, preferably to the sound of live music.

    BBQ Goat In Oaxaca: The Pomp, Ceremony And Tradition 2007

  • The gumbo is served, followed by the most tender and tasty meat imaginable with sides of sangre and the cooked large grain, preferably to the sound of live music.

    BBQ Goat In Oaxaca: The Pomp, Ceremony And Tradition 2007

  • It is one of my favorite flowers which can be found growing in the barren, clay soil that we call gumbo -- super-slippery when wet, hard and cracked when dry.

    Wildflowers in Winter -- the Gumbo Lily Gumbo Lily 2008

  • It is one of my favorite flowers which can be found growing in the barren, clay soil that we call gumbo -- super-slippery when wet, hard and cracked when dry.

    Archive 2008-01-01 Gumbo Lily 2008

Comments

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  • Pure etymological ecstasy. How many English words come from Bantu?

    January 10, 2008

  • Other than basenji...not many.

    January 10, 2008

  • "Mma Ramotswe had more or less forgotten that Mma Makutsi spoke Ikalanga until one day she had used an Ikalanga word in the middle of a sentence, and it had stuck out.

    'I have hurt my gumbo,' Mma Makutsi had said.

    Mma Ramotswe had looked at her in surprise. 'Your gumbo?'

    'Yes,' said Mma Makutsi. 'When I was walking to work today, I stepped into a pothole and hurt my gumbo.' She paused, noticing the look of puzzlement on Mma Ramotswe's face. Then she realised. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Gumbo is foot in Ikalanga.'"

    - 'The Full Cupboard of Life', Alexander McCall Smith.

    March 18, 2008

  • Title of a Dr John album.

    February 15, 2009

  • Chewy suitor?

    March 28, 2010