umbo

Borrowed from Latin umbō (“a shield boss”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈʌm.bəʊ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈʌm.boʊ/
• Rhymes: -ʌmbəʊ

umbo (plural umbones or umbos or umboes)

1. (historical) The boss of a shield, at or near the middle and usually projecting, sometimes in a sharp spike.
   • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page xii:

     It is thirteen inches diameter, made of wood covered with leather, and an iron plate decorated with nails and mouldings; the boss or umbo projects four inches.

   • 2023 March 21, Virginia Heffernan, “I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory”, in WIRED‎:

     serves as the umbo of the region’s so-called Silicon Shield

2. (biology) A boss, or rounded elevation, or a corresponding depression, in a palate, disk, or membrane.
   1. (anatomy) An inward projection of the tympanic membrane of the ear.
   2. (zoology) One of the lateral prominences just above the hinge of a bivalve shell.
   3. (mycology) A bump or protrusion on the cap of a mushroom or toadstool.

• umbonal
• umbonic

• boss

• “umbo”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “umbo”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

• ombu

From Proto-Indo-European *h₃émbʰ-on- ~ *h₃m̥bʰ-n-és, from the root *h₃m̥bʰ- (“navel; nave, hub”). Cognate with Proto-Germanic *ambô (“belly; paunch”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈum.boː/, [ˈʊmboː]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈum.bo/, [ˈumbo]

umbō m (genitive umbōnis); third declension

1. boss (of a shield etc.)
2. elbow (or similar projecting part)

Third-declension noun.

• umbilicus

• ⇒ Translingual: Umbonium (generic name)
• → English: umbo
• Italian: umbone

• “umbo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “umbo”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• umbo in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
• “umbo”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “umbo”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• Audio (Kenya)

  (file)

umbo (ma class, plural maumbo)

1. shape (appearance or outline)