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Mao.

A common surname from Chinese, from Mandarin, usually referring to Mao Zedong.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/maʊ̯/
  1. A common surname from Chinese, from Mandarin, usually referring to Mao Zedong.

  2. A card game, named after Mao Zedong, in which players attempt to shed all their cards without violating certain unspoken rules.

Where this word comes from

From Mandarin 毛 (Máo).

name/maʊ̯/
  1. A Sino-Tibetan language.

Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Tibeto-Burman.

name/maʊ̯/
  1. A branch of the Omotic languages spoken in Ethiopia.

Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Amharic Mao (“indigenous ethnonym”).

noun/maʊ̯/
  1. Synonym of labret

    uncommon
Where this word comes from

Named after Mao Zedong, who had a mole on his chin that resembled a labret.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.