mau-mau

¹

[ mou-mou ]

verb (used with object)

, Slang.

1. to terrorize, intimidate, or threaten.

Mau Mau

²

[ mou mou ]

noun

, plural Mau Maus, (especially collectively) Mau Mau.

1. a member of a revolutionary society in Kenya, established in the early 1950s, that consisted chiefly of Kikuyu and engaged in terrorist activities in an attempt to drive out the European settlers and to give government control to the native Kenyans.

Mau Mau

/ ˈmaʊ ˌmaʊ /

noun

1. a secret political society consisting chiefly of Kikuyu tribesmen that was founded in 1952 to drive European settlers from Kenya by acts of terrorism
2. slang.
   a Ugandan motorcycle policeman who directs traffic

Word History and Origins

Origin of mau-mau¹

1970; coined by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers; Mau Mau

Origin of mau-mau²

From Kikuyu

Example Sentences

They were set up to jail activists and sympathisers during the Mau-Mau uprising of 1952-1960, in which Kahengeri, born in the 1920s and a Secretary General of the independence movement’s Veterans Association, participated.

From Reuters

Funkadelic wasn’t a band, but makers of “the sabre tooth, slippery tongued & most nastic mau-mau bootybusteroosters of noxious negrow, humpanotical moldy metal marching noise music.”

From Los Angeles Times

The bigger, swampier game here is to rally media pressure, and to mau-mau Mr. Nunes into giving the department a veto over the memo’s release.

From Wall Street Journal

There was enough artillery in Beekman’s toy department to wipe out Red China and the Mau-Mau tribe of Africa, and I personally think some of the toy manufacturers could use a good course in preventive psychiatry.

From Literature

In other words, the coordinated, partisan effort to mau-mau the electors is precisely the sort of politicking and political tampering that the Electoral College was designed to prevent.

From Wall Street Journal