balibago

noun

ba·li·ba·go

ˌbälēˈbä(ˌ)gō

plural -s

Philippines

: majagua sense a

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Tagalog

Note: One of a number of variants of the name for the tree in major Philippine languages. The words balabágo and malabágo are given as Visayan, balibágo as Tagalog and Pampangan in Elmer D. Merrill, A Dictionary of Native Plant Names of the Philippine Islands (Manila: Department of the Interior, Bureau of Government Laboratories, 1903), compiled largely from 19th-century Spanish printed sources. John Wolff, in A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, gives maribágu as the name in that language for Hibiscus tiliaceus. The second element of the word is clearly a reflex of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *baRu, the tree Hibiscus tiliaceus. See also bola entry 2.