mumbo jumbo n.

1738, originally in an account of an incident which took place 1732 near Sami in modern Gambia. The Mumbo Jumbo was described as a costume "idol" used by locals to frighten women into submission. The outfit was placed on a stick outside the town during the day, and by night someone would dress in it and visit women or other people deemed a problem, to settle disputes or bestow punishment. Other 18c. spellings include Munbo Jumbo, Numbo Jumbo and Mumbo Chumbo. The original account is of the Mandingo people, but no obvious Mandingo term has been identified as the source. Proposals have included mama dyambo "pompom-wearing ancestor" and mamagyombo "magician who exorcises troubled ancestor spirits." Perhaps it is a loan word from another Niger-Congo language (see zombie.) The French transcription of the word is moumbo-dioumbo or moumbo-ioumbo, Portuguese mumban-jumban.

Every town in the region was said to have a Mumbo Jumbo, and 19c. colonial accounts of the practice made it into a byword for a "superstitious object of senseless worship" by 1866, hence the meaning "big, empty talk," attested from 1896.

词汇	mumbo jumbo
词源	mumbo jumbo n. 1738, originally in an account of an incident which took place 1732 near Sami in modern Gambia. The Mumbo Jumbo was described as a costume "idol" used by locals to frighten women into submission. The outfit was placed on a stick outside the town during the day, and by night someone would dress in it and visit women or other people deemed a problem, to settle disputes or bestow punishment. Other 18c. spellings include Munbo Jumbo, Numbo Jumbo and Mumbo Chumbo. The original account is of the Mandingo people, but no obvious Mandingo term has been identified as the source. Proposals have included mama dyambo "pompom-wearing ancestor" and mamagyombo "magician who exorcises troubled ancestor spirits." Perhaps it is a loan word from another Niger-Congo language (see zombie.) The French transcription of the word is moumbo-dioumbo or moumbo-ioumbo, Portuguese mumban-jumban. Every town in the region was said to have a Mumbo Jumbo, and 19c. colonial accounts of the practice made it into a byword for a "superstitious object of senseless worship" by 1866, hence the meaning "big, empty talk," attested from 1896. Entries linking to mumbo jumbo zombie n. also zombi, jumbie, 1788, possibly representing two separate words, one relating to the dead and the other to authority figures, but if so historically these were not kept distinct in English-speaking usage. The oldest attested sense in English is "'spirits of dead wicked men [...] that torment the living.'" The sense of "reanimated corpse" is by 1929 (Seabrook). The word usually is said to be of West African origin (compare Kikongo zumbi "fetish" and djumbi "ghost). A sense of "slow-witted person" is recorded from 1936. It also is attested from 1819 as a title for a chief, in an Afro-Brazilian context. This is said to be directly from the Angolan (Kimbundu) nzambi, "deity." The meaning "witch" is attested by 1910, that of "deity" is by 1921. Grand Zombi as the name of a deity in Voodoo practices is in English by 1904. Zombi was also used as a name for pets in 19c. jumbo adj. "very large, unusually large for its type," 1882, a reference to Jumbo, name of the London Zoo's huge elephant (acquired from France, said to have been captured as a baby in Abyssinia in 1861), sold February 1882 to U.S. circus showman P.T. Barnum amid great excitement in America and great outcry in England, both fanned by Barnum. "I tell you conscientiously that no idea of the immensity of the animal can be formed. It is a fact that he is simply beyond comparison. The largest elephants I ever saw are mere dwarfs by the side of Jumbo." [P.T. Barnum, interview, "Philadelphia Press," April 22, 1882] The name is perhaps from slang jumbo "clumsy, unwieldy fellow" (1823), which itself is possibly from a word for "elephant" in a West African language (compare Kongo nzamba). OED suggests it is possibly the second element in mumbo jumbo. Century Dictionary says "The name was given as having an African semblance." As a product size, by 1886 (cigars). Jumbo jet attested by 1964. Jumbo was accidentally killed near St. Thomas, Ontario, Sept. 15, 1885, struck by a freight train while the circus was loading up to travel. updated on January 30, 2023
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mumbo jumbo n.

Entries linking to mumbo jumbo