Other forms: bamboos
Bamboo is the tall fast-growing hollow grass that pandas eat. A bamboo forest, bamboo furniture, a bamboo cane.
It is a grass rather than a tree, and some species grow nearly a metre a day, which makes it among the fastest-growing plants on earth. It is used for scaffolding, flooring, furniture, paper and food — bamboo shoots. It flowers rarely and, in many species, all plants of one stock flower simultaneously across the world and then die. Note bamboo as a plural or singular, and that the plant spreads by runners and is very hard to remove.
1nounbambooA tall fast-growing hollow grass.
“The bamboo reached the top of the fence in one season.”
bamboo is a plant.
Malay bambu came into English through Dutch and Portuguese, from the trading routes of the East Indies. It is one of a group of everyday English words — sago, gong, orangutan — that came from Malay by the same route.
Dutch
bamboe
English, today
bamboo
Borrowed from Dutch bamboe. Dutch bamboe, from Portuguese bambu, from Malay bambu, from kn ಬಂಬು, variant form of ಬೇವು. Cognate with Malayalam വേപ്പ്, te వేప, from dra-pro wēmpu (“neem”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA