capoeira

[kap-oo-air-uh]

cap·o·ei·ra

[kap-oo-air-uh]
noun
a dance form incorporating martial arts elements, originating in Brazil as a system of physical discipline and movement.
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Capoeira is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Collins
World English Dictionary
capoeira (ˌkæpʊˈeɪrə)
 
n
a movement discipline combining martial art and dance, which originated among African slaves in 19th-century Brazil
 
[C20: from Portuguese]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia

capoeira

folk dance popular in the Brazilian northeast. It was brought to Brazil by slaves from Angola. Capoeira was originally a deadly sport in which the participants, often with blades strapped to their ankles, swung their legs high in attack, somersaulted, and passed within a hairsbreadth of their opponent's knees, head, groin, or stomach. Flexibility and rapidity of movement were more important than sheer muscular strength. In the modern dance the same quick, graceful movements are employed in dance; usually two men face each other, emulating the blows and parries of "the fight" in time with the rhythms of the berimbau, or musical bow. Clubs in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro train dancers in the arts of precise kicking and passing

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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