mocambo

English

Etymology

From Portuguese mocambo, from Kimbundu [Term?].

Noun

mocambo (plural mocambos)

1. (now historical) A community made up of former slaves in colonial Brazil.
   • 1984, Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Helen R. Lane, The War of the End of the World, Folio Society, published 2012, page 517:

     The captured animals have been taken, once night fell, to pens behind the Mocambo.

   • 1996, Stuart B Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery, page 109:

     The mocambo represented an expression of social protest in a slave society.

   • 2021, Ronald H Chilcote, Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil: Comparative Studies, page 251:

     Such meetings were held in Macaco, the largest mocambo, which housed five thousand blacks and the supreme chieftain.

Portuguese

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /moˈkɐ̃.bu/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /moˈkɐ̃.bu/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /moˈkɐ̃.bo/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /muˈkɐ̃.bu/

• Hyphenation: mo‧cam‧bo

Noun

mocambo m (plural mocambos)

1. (Brazil) refuge for fleeing slaves

   Synonym: (Brazil) quilombo

2. (Brazil) shanty