Timbuktu
Americannoun
-
French Tombouctou. a town in central Mali, W Africa, near the Niger River.
-
any faraway place.
noun
-
French name: Tombouctou. a town in central Mali, on the River Niger: terminus of a trans-Saharan caravan route; a great Muslim centre (14th–16th centuries). Pop: 31 973 (1998)
-
any distant or outlandish place
from here to Timbuktu
Discover More
By the fourteenth century, it was famous for its gold trade.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For an instant I felt a pang, picturing myself in Tokyo or Timbuktu, craving one of my aunts peach pies.
From Literature
In December, foreign tourists were able to visit Timbuktu for the first time in a decade after jihadists rendered it too dangerous.
From Barron's
Whether they were in London, Budapest, or Timbuktu, she was still the children’s governess, after all.
From Literature
The various embassies' recent actions "reveal a critical and rapid deterioration of security, even around Bamako, which until now had been relatively spared", Bakary Sambe of the Timbuktu Institute, a Dakar-based think tank, told AFP.
From Barron's
Timbuktu, a UN World Heritage Site, was captured by Islamist militants in 2012 before they were driven out, but has once more been under siege in recent years.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
