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bongo

UK/ˈbɒŋ.ɡəʊ/US/ˈbɑŋ.ɡoʊ/
nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,079 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: bongos

A bongo is a pair of small hand drums joined together. Play the bongos, a set of bongos, tap the bongo.

The two are different sizes and the smaller is called the male and the larger the female, which is standard terminology rather than a joke. They are played between the knees with the fingers. They came from eastern Cuba around 1900.

Unknown · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of bongo

  1. 1nounbongoA pair of small hand drums joined together.B2+

    “He sat on the beach tapping out a rhythm on his bongos.”

bongo is an instrument.

Where it comes from

From Cuban Spanish bongo. The instrument came from eastern Cuba around 1900.

  1. Spanish

    bongo

  2. English, today

    bongo

From Spanish bongo.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Music & Instruments

Practise this word

bongo in the wild

  • The bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus) is a large, mostly nocturnal, forest-dwelling antelope, native to sub-Saharan Africa.

    Bongo (antelope)

  • The smaller bongos used in son cubano were popular across Cuba by the 1910s and reached the concert halls of the eastern United States in the 1930s.

    Bongo drum

  • During the second half of the 20th century, bongos began to be played in a wide variety of genres, from bachata to Latin rock.

    Bongo drum

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.