Standard Lemma guide

marimba

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • mə-rĭmʹbə
  • /məˈɹɪm.bə/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: M ER0 IH1 M B AH0 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A percussion instrument with African origins, similar to a xylophone with resonators, but much lower in range and darker in timbre.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: entertainment, lifestyle, music

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: marimbaphone

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

a percussion instrument with wooden bars tuned to produce a chromatic scale and with resonators; played with small mallets

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: xylophone

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: percussion instrument, percussive instrument

History

Etymology

From Portuguese marimba, via a Bantu source, perhaps Kimbundu marimba (“xylophone”).

Across languages

Translations

18 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: маримба (marimba) — musical instrument
  • Catalan: marimba — musical instrument
  • Chinese Mandarin: 馬林巴琴 /马林巴琴 (mǎlínbāqín) — musical instrument
  • Dutch: marimba — musical instrument
  • Finnish: marimba — musical instrument
  • French: marimba — musical instrument
  • German: Marimbaphon — musical instrument
  • Hungarian: marimba — musical instrument
  • Irish: mairimbe — musical instrument
  • Italian: marimba — musical instrument
  • Japanese: マリンバ (marinba) — musical instrument
  • Portuguese: marimba — musical instrument
  • Romanian: marimba — musical instrument
  • Russian: мари́мба (marímba) — musical instrument
  • Spanish: marimba — musical instrument
  • Swahili: marimba — musical instrument
  • Swedish: marimba — musical instrument
  • Tagalog: marimba — musical instrument
Real reading context

marimba in complete knowledge articles