gumbo

• gombo

Borrowed from Louisiana French gombo, possibly via Louisiana Creole gombo, ultimately from Kimbundu (k)ingombo (“okra”); compare Portuguese quingombó.[1][2]

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡʌm.boʊ/
• Rhymes: -ʌmbəʊ

gumbo (countable and uncountable, plural gumbos)

1. (countable) Synonym of okra: the plant or its edible capsules.
2. (countable) A soup or stew popular in Louisiana, consisting of a strong stock, meat or shellfish, a thickener (often okra), and the "Holy Trinity" of celery, bell peppers, and onions.
3. (uncountable) A fine silty soil that when wet becomes very thick and heavy.
   • 1909, Ralph Connor, chapter 11, in The Foreigner:

     The team stuck fast in the black muck, and every effort to extricate them served only to imbed them more hopelessly in the sticky gumbo.

   • 1914 April, “Making Good Roads by Firing Poor Ones”, in Popular Mechanics, page 567:

     There are no poorer roads in all the United States than the "gumbo" roads of the south—gumbo being the name give a certain kind of mud or clay that is particularly sticky, clings tenaciously, seems to have no bottom, and will not support any weight.

   • 1950 July 3, “Labor: Trouble at Lowland”, in Time:

     The red gumbo soil uttered ugly sucking sounds at the touch of a man's boot.

• gumbo limbo
• gumbo z'herbes

gumbo

1. (anatomy) foot

gumbo

1. nominative singular of gumba (“swarm”)