Bamboo

/bæmˈbu/ · noun

Meaning

Any of the fast-growing grasses of the Bambusoideae subfamily, characterised by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem..

Definitions by Sense

1. Any of the fast-growing grasses of the Bambusoideae subfamily, characterised by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem.
2. (uncountable) Wood of the bamboo plant as a material for building, furniture, etc.
3. (countable) A stick, rod, pole, or cane of bamboo, especially one used as a vessel for liquids, or as a tool for corporal punishment.
4. (slang) A didgeridoo.
5. (slang) A member of the British military or British East India Company who spent so much time in Indonesia, India, or Malaysia that they never went back home.
6. Made of the wood of the bamboo.
7. (transitive) To flog with a bamboo cane.
8. (transitive) To paint (furniture, etc.) to give it the appearance of bamboo.

Example Sentences

However, the late Hsia and the Shang were considerably warmer, possibly comparable to Hang-chou today, an area where bamboo proliferates.

It was evident that Europeans seldom came here, for numbers of women skeltered away as I walked through the village and one girl about ten or twelve years old, who had just brought a bamboo full of water from the river, threw it down with a cry of horror and alarm the moment she caught sight of me, turned around and jumped into the stream.

[…] the beadle is punished by fine, and sometimes bambooed, if robberies are too frequent within his jurisdiction, or if he fails to secure the person of any malefactor particularly wanted by his superior officers.

The craze for bambooing furniture and accessories was one of many popular paint techniques in the 18th century and early Victorian era.

If you're just a girl from Lucknow, with no fluid cash, you'll be just one more among thousands going from producer to producer by auto-rickshaw, and every photographer who agrees to take a picture for your portfolio will want to introduce you to his bed upstairs in the loft. And what you'll get out of all this in the end is a lot of bambooing and maybe a dance or two in his videos.

One scene of attachment and intimacy shows Vijay careening into their shared apartment dead drunk and insulting a praying Ajay for his devotion to the household god, Hanuman […], saying that instead of being rescued Ajay will be "bamboo-ed," a popular slang for anal penetration.

Synonyms for bamboo

Antonyms for bamboo

Related Words

Word Forms

• bamboos
• bambou
• bambu
• bambooing
• bambooed

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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