The story
- Brazilian Portuguese · borrowed frombossa“inclination, propensity, trend”
- Brazilian Portuguese · borrowed frombossa nova
- English todaybossa nova
Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese bossa nova, from colloquial Brazilian Portuguese bossa (“inclination, propensity, trend”, literally “protuberance”) + nova (“new”). Compare the English expression new wave, or the French nouvelle vague.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.