Bongos

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A pair of cylindrical percussion instruments that produce unique sounds when struck, typically played with hands and often found in various musical styles
2. These hand-played drums, distinguished by their different sizes, create rhythmic patterns and are a staple in traditional and contemporary music
3. A set of two small, hand-held drums that produce distinct tones when hit, commonly associated with diverse musical genres and often utilized in ensemble settings

Etymology: "Bongos" is the plural of "bongo", and the singular names a pair of small drums played with the hands. The drums came to English from United States Spanish "bongó", and that word in turn is taken from a Bantu language, probably Ekele, a language of the Cameroon region in West Africa, where the form "boungu" is recorded. The Spanish-speaking communities of Cuba, where the drum developed, adopted the name and the instrument, which is why English speakers encountered it through Spanish rather than directly from an African source. The same Spanish word also gives the name of an animal, the mountain bongo, a striped antelope of African forests. That use is a separate borrowing from Spanish "bongo" and reflects the same root, so the drum and the antelope share an ancestry in an African language, though they reached English by different routes.

Synonyms: drums, percussion instruments, hand drums, musical instruments, bongo drums