Bingo

How to spell bingo

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bingo

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bingo mean?

1. nounA game of chance in which players mark off numbers on cards as those numbers are called at random, aiming to complete a winning pattern.
2. interjectionAn exclamation used to signal a sudden, correct, or satisfying result.

Bingo in a sentence

• noun

  Every Thursday the community hall hosts a bingo night for the residents.

• interjection

  After testing the last wire he muttered bingo and the engine finally started.

• noun

  She bought three bingo cards and a felt-tip dabber before the session began.

• interjection

  Bingo was the word she cried the moment the missing receipt turned up in her coat pocket.

Where does bingo come from?

Language of origin: Other

Bingo is one of those words whose exact origin is genuinely murky, so its earliest history is best treated with caution. It seems to belong to a small family of playful exclamations like 'bang' and 'bingo' that mimic a sudden, satisfying result, and as a shout meaning 'there it is!' it is recorded in English from the early 1800s. The number game we now call by this name grew out of an older counter game played with dried beans, which was widely known as 'beano' because players covered numbers with beans. The modern name is usually traced to the late 1920s in the United States, where the toy promoter Edwin Lowe popularised it after hearing an excited player accidentally cry 'bingo!' instead of 'beano'. Because the word is essentially a sound rather than a built-up Latin or Greek form, its spelling is mercifully phonetic and free of silent letters.

How the word is built

• bingo (a single unanalysable root; no prefix or suffix)