[kuh-sim-boh]
A heavy mist or drizzle that occurs in the Congo Basin, often accompanied by onshore winds.
ORIGIN
Cacimbo “a heavy mist that occurs in the Congo Basin” is a borrowing from Portuguese, which in turn likely adapted the term from the word for “well (for water)” in Kimbundu, a Bantu language of northern Angola. Because the former Portuguese Empire maintained a presence in several parts of western and southern Africa, numerous terms originating in African languages (particularly the Niger-Congo family) passed into Portuguese, which is still an official language in six African countries. With Portuguese as an intermediary, English has inherited batuque, samba, and the recent Word of the Day capoeira, all probably from West African languages. Cacimbo was first recorded in English in the early 1860s.
EXAMPLE
The wind can really get strong here, very powerful, you know. It’s so sweet in the cacimbo, when you’re inside with something warm to drink and you can hear it rushing through the trees outside. It’s beautiful, really beautiful…
DENIS KEHOE, WALKING ON DRY LAND, 2011
For a long time there was no rain. Ludo watered the flowerbeds with the water that had accumulated in the swimming pool. Finally there was a rip in the cold curtain of low-hanging clouds, which in Luanda they call cacimbo, and the rain came down again.
For a long time there was no rain. Ludo watered the flowerbeds with the water that had accumulated in the swimming pool. Finally there was a rip in the cold curtain of low-hanging clouds, which in Luanda they call cacimbo, and the rain came down again.
JOSÉ EDUARDO AGUALUSA, A GENERAL THEORY OF OBLIVION, TRANSLATED BY DANIEL HAHN, 2015
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