mumbo jumbo

See also: mumbo-jumbo

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Probably from Mandinka maamajomboo (“mask; masked dancer”); or perhaps from /l/-vocalization in the words "mumble" and "jumble".

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /mʌmbəʊˈdʒʌmbəʊ/
  • Rhymes: -ʌmbəʊ

Noun

mumbo jumbo (countable and uncountable, plural mumbo jumbos)

  1. (historical) A deity or other supernatural being said to have been worshipped by certain West African peoples; an idol.
  2. (religion) Any object of superstition; religious words and/or actions which are seen as superstitious or fraudulent.
    Rev. Quack's healing services are little more than mumbo jumbo.
    • 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 91:
      "And what have you got to say? Another lot of mumbo-jumbo like your learned associates over there?"
    • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 179:
      What is going on in all this religious mumbo-jumbo that is so foreign to the positivism of contemporary scholarship is a reenactment of the history of the soul before the beginning of terrestrial evolution.
  3. (by extension) Any confusing or meaningless speech; nonsense, gibberish.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense
    Football lingo is mumbo jumbo to me.
    • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 89:
      He escaped from that experience confounded, horrified, and conscious of degradation. Those infernal bandogs of the law had treated him as a piece of insensate property to their drivelling mumbo-jumbo, as if mere contact with it had robbed him of all rights to the dignity and integrity of his own ego.
    • 1985, Robert Hayden, “Frederick Douglass”, in Collected Poems:
      When it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, / Reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more / Than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
    • 2020 February 3, Rowena Mason, “Boris Johnson hints at allowing GM food imports from US”, in The Guardian‎:
      He also said Britain would be “governed by science, not mumbo-jumbo” when looking at whether imported food was acceptable for consumption in the UK.

Translations

Further reading
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