CS Knowledge Base

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈæm.bəʊ/
• Rhymes: -æmbəʊ

Borrowed from Late Latin ambō, from Ancient Greek ἄμβων (ámbōn).

ambo (plural ambos or ambones)

1. A raised platform in an early Christian church, as well as in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic churches.
   • 1918 [1878], chapter 1, in Aylmer and Louise Maude, transl., Anna Karenina, Cambridge: Oxford University Press, translation of Анна Каренина (Anna Karenina) by Leo Tolstoy, →OCLC, part 5, page 4:

     ‘It will get settled somehow,’ he thought, and went to the ambo. On going up the steps and turning to the right he saw the priest.

   • 1997, John Julius Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium, Penguin, published 1998, page 150:

     the Emperor arrived and instead of moving directly to his seat climbed to the top level of the ambo, the great three-decker pulpit of polychrome marble.

2. (Roman Catholicism) A stationary podium used for readings and homilies.
   • 2010, General Instruction of the Roman Missal‎^[2], United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, published 2011, section #309:

     The dignity of the Word of God requires that in the church there be a suitable place from which it may be proclaimed and toward which the attention of the faithful naturally turns during the Liturgy of the Word. It is appropriate that generally this place be a stationary ambo and not simply a movable lectern.

• ambon, lectern, podium, pulpit

Clipping of ambulance +‎ -o.

ambo (plural ambos)

1. (informal) An ambulance driver.
2. (informal) An ambulance.
   • 2004 Dec. 19, David Simon & al., "Mission Accomplished", The Wire, Season 3, Episode 12, 00:31:54:

     Rawls: I don't want the fuckin' reporters seeing any ambos. Shit.

Clipping of ambassador +‎ -o.

ambo (plural ambos)

1. (slang) An ambassador.
   • 2022, Susan Gillerman Boggs, Journey Across Time: A Diplomatic Spouse in South Asia:

     The Ambo needed a sizable embassy support staff to hold his hand at every step of the way, […]

• Bamo, moab, MOAB, boma, Abom, Moab, moAb, MOBA, Mabo

ambò

1. mouse; rat

ambo

1. father

Learned borrowing from Late Latin ambō, from Ancient Greek ἄμβων (ámbōn).

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈambo/ [ˈam.bo]
• Rhymes: -ambo
• Syllabification: am‧bo

ambo (plural ambo-ambo)

1. (Catholicism) ambo (stationary podium used for readings and homilies)

   Hypernym: mimbar

• “ambo”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

• IPA^(key): /ˈam.bo/
• Rhymes: -ambo
• Hyphenation: àm‧bo

Inherited from Latin ambō.

ambo (usually invariable, rare masculine plural ambi, rare feminine plural ambe)

1. (literary) both

   Synonyms: ambedue, (literary, obsolete) entrambi, amendue

   • 1300s–1310s, Dante Alighieri, “Canto XIII”, in Inferno [Hell], lines 58–61; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate], 2^nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:

     Io son colui che tenni ambo le chiavi
     del cor di Federigo, e che le volsi,
     serrando e diserrando, sì soavi,
     che dal secreto suo quasi ogn’ uom tolsi

     I am the one who kept both keys to Frederick's heart, and turned them, locking and unlocking, so softly, that I kept almost everyone from his secrets

Noun use of the above determiner.

ambo m (plural ambi)

1. double (in various games)

• ambo¹ in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
• ambo² in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

• boma

ambo

1. romanization of ꦲꦩ꧀ꦧꦺꦴ

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈam.boː], [ˈam.bɔ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈam.bo]

From Proto-Italic *amβō, cognate to Ancient Greek ἄμφω (ámphō, “both”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰóh₁, possibly prefixed with the root noun *h₂ent- (“front, front side”) (whence ante).^[1] Often considered related to ambi-, but according to Dunkel this only applies to the first syllable.^[2]

ambō̆ m (feminine ambae, neuter ambō̆)

1. both (of objects occurring in pairs)

   Coordinate terms: duo, uterque

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis VI.540:

     Hic locus est, partēs ubi sē via findit in ambās: dextera quae […]

     This is the place where the way parts in both directions: the right one […]

Irregular adjective, plural only.

(The irregular declension is a vestige of Latin's dual, seen also in duo but otherwise defunct in the extant literature.)

• duo
• uterque
• binus
• English Wendens Ambo

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἄμβων (ámbōn).

ambō m

1. (Medieval Latin) pulpit, lectern

Third-declension noun.

• English: ambo
• German: Ambo
• Indonesian: ambo
• Italian: ambone
  • Polish: ambona

• “ambo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ambo”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ambo, in ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ [Logeion] Dictionaries for Ancient Greek and Latin (in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese), University of Chicago, since 2011
• "ambo", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “ambo”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Sihler, Andrew L. (1995), New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN

From earlier form hambo, from Sanskrit हम्भाय (hambhāya, “low”), compare to Sanskrit हंबतारा (haṃbatārā, “good man”).

• IPA^(key): /am.bɔ/

• Audio:

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ambo

1. first person singular; I

awak, den

• ab (Gard)
• amb (Languedoc)
• ambé (Provençal)
• dab (Gascony)
• damb (Gascony)
• embé (Provençal)

ambo (Vivaro-alpine)

1. (accompaniment) with

Borrowed from Sanskrit हम्भाय (hambhāya, “low”), compare to Sanskrit हंबतारा (haṃbatārā, “good man”). Attested in the Old Javanese prose of Tantri Kaḍiri.

ambo

1. escort (who walks beside a horse, etc.)

• Javanese: ꦲꦩ꧀ꦧꦺꦴ (ambo)

• "ambo" in P.J. Zoetmulder with the collaboration of S.O. Robson, Old Javanese-English Dictionary. 's-Gravenhage: M. Nijhoff, 1982.

ambo

1. nominative singular of amba (“mango tree”)

Borrowed from Italian ambo, referring to the two-piece suit.

• IPA^(key): /ˈambo/ [ˈãm.bo]
• Rhymes: -ambo
• Syllabification: am‧bo

ambo m (plural ambos)

1. (Southern Cone) suit

• “ambo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

Cognate with Persian انبار.

ambo

1. barn
2. depot