Meanings
alternative Kowa-Bunga · alternative cowabonga · alternative kawabonga · alternative kowabonga · alternative kowabunga
- humorousslangusuallyExpressing amazement, enthusiasm, or joy.
Cowabunga, dude!
3 more examples
Kowa-Bunga! Then Me Fix You Good! You Be Sorry.
1954 Jan, Howdy DoodyShouting the surfer's cry ‘Cowabunga!’ they climb a 12-ft. wall of water and ‘take the drop’ off its shoulder.
1963 August 9, TimeBoth words turn up in the same sentence—as in ‘Cowabunga, it's humongous!’—when the children crowd around some toy.
1991 December 9, The New Yorker, page 115
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Unknown, but was popularized (as Kowa-Bunga) by Chief Thunderthud on the American children's show Howdy Doody in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and became associated with American surfing culture. By the early 1980s, it was used as the catch-phrase of Cookie Monster on the American television show Sesame Street, and gained popularity with a broader audience after its use in the American cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (For further treatment, see here.)
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
cowabunga. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cowabunga
“cowabunga.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cowabunga. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cowabunga,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cowabunga.
Source: cowabunga on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.