kazoo

[kuh-zoo] /kəˈzu/
noun, plural kazoos.
1.
a musical toy consisting of a tube that is open at both ends and has a hole in the side covered with parchment or membrane, which produces a buzzing sound when the performer hums into one end.
Also called mirliton.
2.
Slang.
  1. the buttocks.
  2. the anus.
Origin
1880-85, Americanism; origin uncertain; alleged to be imitative
Examples from the web for kazoo
  • So fired, so refined, artificial everything up the kazoo.
  • Presents a show featuring his published and unpublished picture books and songs accompanied by guitar and kazoo.
British Dictionary definitions for kazoo

kazoo

/kəˈzuː/
noun (pl) -zoos
1.
a cigar-shaped musical instrument of metal or plastic with a membranous diaphragm of thin paper that vibrates with a nasal sound when the player hums into it
Word Origin
C20: probably imitative of the sound produced
Word Origin and History for kazoo
n.

1884, American English, probably altered from earlier bazoo "trumpet" (1877); probably ultimately imitative (cf. bazooka). In England, formerly called a Timmy Talker, in France, a mirliton.

Kazoos, the great musical wonder, ... anyone can play it; imitates fowls, animals, bagpipes, etc. [1895 Montgomery Ward catalogue, p.245]

Slang definitions & phrases for kazoo

kazoo

noun
  1. The buttocks; anus; ass: an impossible, unreliable, self-destructive pain in the kazoo/ We have subcommittee staff running out the kazoo/ You know he's off balance and you'd like to stick it in his gazoo
  2. Toilet; can: I tore it up and flushed it down the kazoo

[1970s+; origin unknown; perhaps fr Louisiana French zoozoo, ''buttocks, ass''; perhaps kazoo, known in its standard sense fr the 1880s, suggested the anus in being tubular and emitting sounds]