zamboanga
/zɐmbˈwaŋ.ɡɐ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.52 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
Zamboanga City (a city in Zamboanga Peninsula, Mindanao, Philippines)
name
Zamboanga Peninsula (an administrative region of Mindanao, Philippines).
name
Zamboanga peninsula (a peninsula in Mindanao, Philippines).
name
Province of Zamboanga (a former province of Mindanao, Philippines)
name
The Republic of Zamboanga, a short-lived revolutionary republic, founded after the collapse of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, existing between May and November 1899.
Etymology
From Spanish Zamboanga, from Central Sama Samboangan (“mooring place”), from sambuwang (“large mooring post”) + -an (locative suffix). The root is cognate with Malay sembuang (“large mooring post”). The original etymon is attested in the Velarde map (1734). A popular folk etymology may also attribute it to Malay jambangan (“flower garden”), from jambang (“flower pot”) + -an (locative suffix), but this name has never been attested in any historical records prior to the 1960s with the place being historically attested usually instead as "Samboangan".
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Zamboanga, Samboangan