kumbaya

alternative kum ba yah · alternative kumbayah · alternative Kumbaya

1. Used to evoke spiritual unity and interpersonal harmony, with varying degrees of sincerity or sarcasm, as referring to the folk song.

   1 more example

   Dr. Hoffman told me the word kumbaya was originally an African American spiritual, a song that was also a prayer asking for divine intervention, asking for help in dire times, and that then the hippies in the sixties took it and sang it to mean unity amid protest, and then it got played out and became a stand-in for corniness about togetherness.

   2024, Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars, Harvill Secker, page 163

1. Alternative letter-case form of kumbaya.

   1 more example

   But the rise of multiracialism is not all Kumbaya choruses and “postracial” identity. The N.A.A.C.P. criticized the census change, fearing that since so few in the black community are of fully African descent, mass attrition to a mixed-race option could threaten political clout and Federal financing.

   2008 March 23, Peggy Orenstein, “Mixed Messenger”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 06 Nov 2020