combo

Etymology

Clipping of combination + -o

noun

1. A small musical group.
   The jazz combo played nightly at the little restaurant.
2. (slang) A combination.
   I need to open the safe but I forgot the combo.
   I order the low priced combo platter: a taco, a burrito and a chimichanga.
   As the 1857 to Manchester Piccadilly rolls in, I scan the windows and realise there are plenty of spare seats, so I hop aboard. The train is a '221'+'220' combo to allow for social distancing - a luxury on an XC train as normally you're playing sardines, so I make the most of it. December 2 2020, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68
3. (video games) An action composed of a sequence of simpler actions, especially a composite attacking move in a fighting game.
   Obviously, this is something not seen very often, with super flashy, combo-driven fighters dominating store shelves everywhere. 2002, Andy Slaven, Video Game Bible, 1985-2002
4. (gaming) Effective combination of gameplay elements.
   1. Two or more gameplay elements (e.g. characters, items) which are powerful when used together.
      Tm have several OP combos, i think ecology expert with kelp algea is stronger than fish combo IMO. 2019, RyuSora, “OP Combo”, in Board Game Geek
   2. (especially collectible card games) A strategy aiming to win by playing a specific combination of cards (or similar), often in a single turn.
      Personally I'd like to see an environment where all the major archetypes, control, beatdown, and combo are viable. 1999, Steven Merritt, “[ISSUE] An alternative to Banning, increase minimum deck size”, in rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy (Usenet)
      Whenever I play (I play D&D alot too) I always play combo. 1999, michele oasheim, “The Funnest Combo Decks”, in rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy (Usenet)
5. (Australia, derogatory) A Caucasian man who marries or has a sexual relationship with an Aboriginal woman; a Caucasian man who lives among Aboriginal people and adopts Aboriginal culture
   "[…] Look at Ganger O'Cannon of Black Adder Creek, with his halfcaste wife and quadroon kids, a down-right family man—yet looked on as as much a combo as if he lived in a blacks' camp. Isn't that so? […] The casual comboes are respected, while men like O'Cannon and myself, who rear their kids, are utterly despised. […]" 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VII, in Capricornia, pages 107–8
   1993, Journal of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, p. 97, https://books.google.ca/books?id=Ky4iAQAAMAAJ&q=%22a+combo%22+halfcaste+-%22combo+box%22&dq=%22a+combo%22+halfcaste+-%22combo+box%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi18NvhnufMAhWL6IMKHfnYDUkQ6AEIbDAQ If he sides with the Aborigines against their employers and exploiters, he may be called a ' combo ', and yet he may not achieve popularity with the Aborigines.
   Many passages in Harney's books are written from the point of view of what he refers to as the ' combo '; a white man who has sexual relations with Aboriginal women. The combo is seen as an anarchic, egalitarian figure whose enjoyment of life largely comes through his pursuit of Aboriginal women. 1996, Jeremy MacClancy, Chris McDonaugh, editors, Popularizing Anthropology, London and New York: Routledge, page 167
6. (graphical user interface, informal) A combo box.
   Combos and lists are two very powerful controls that allow the user to select from a predetermined set of values. 2000, Marcia Akins, Andy Kramek, Rick Schummer, 1001 Things You Wanted to Know about Visual FoxPro, page 127

verb

1. To combine