vuvuzela
/vuːvuːˈzeɪlə/noun
vuvuzela is a noun meaning “A trumpet-shaped horn, now usually plastic, that produces a loud buzzing sound” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-U-V-U-Z-E-L-A, and it appears about once in every 11 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of vuvuzela is vuvuzelas.
What does vuvuzela mean?
noun
- 1
A trumpet-shaped horn, now usually plastic, that produces a loud buzzing sound.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce vuvuzela?
- UK /vuːvuːˈzɛlə/
- US /vuːvuːˈzeɪlə/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-vuvuzela.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of vuvuzela
- vuvuzelas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is vuvuzela?
Vuvuzela appears about once in every 11 million words in written English, the 101,613th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Vuvuzela in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense horn:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does vuvuzela come from?
Borrowed from Zulu vuvuzela (“to make a vu vu noise”), from the /vuː/ sound the horns make.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).