baba
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: note: variously
ipa: /ˈbɑːbɑː/
ipa: /ˈbɑːbə/
ipa: /ˈbæbə/
rhymes: -ɑːbɑː
rhymes: -ɑːbə
rhymes: -æbə
Forms: form: babas
Etymology: As one of the first utterances many babies are able to say, baba (like mama, papa, and dada) has come to be used in many languages as a term for various family members:
* father: Albanian, Arabic, Western Armenian, Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Greek, Marathi, Mingrelian, Nepali, Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Yoruba, Shona, Zulu
* grandmother: many Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian, Russian, Czech and Polish; a doublet of bubbe), Romanian, Yiddish, Japanese
* grandfather: Azerbaijani, Zulu (father, grandfather)
* baby: Afrikaans, Sinhala, Hungarian
These terms often continue to be used by English speakers whose families came from one of these cultures. In some cases, they may become more widely used in localities that have been heavily influenced by an immigrant community. Some senses were extensions of one of these family terms in the original languages ("old woman" from "grandmother", "holy man" from "father"). The "cake" sense comes through French, from Polish baba (“old woman”). The Middle Eastern word baba (as in Ali Baba) is rather a term of endearment, and is ultimately derived from Persian بابا (bābā, “father”) (from Old Persian pāpa; as opposed to the Arabic words أَبُو (ʔabū) and أَب (ʔab); see also Papak), and is linguistically related to the common European word papa and the word pope, having the same Indo-European origin. The Chinese word "baba", meaning father, comes from 爸爸.
Senses: glosses: A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.
examples: text: My baba, Ksenia Dubinsky, tells me that my education makes her proud.
ref: 1993, Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880-1929, University of Chicago Press:
text: 2001, Brattleboro Remembers, edited by the Brattleboro [Vermont] Historical Society, Arcadia Publishing
I walked first for my grandmother, and my mother was sorry she had missed my first steps. My Baba was so proud, my mother later told me.
text: As we made eye contact, I slowly began to wonder if she was Baba. I did not know my grandmother though I'd spoken with her several times on the telephone;
ref: 2004, MaryBeth Bond, editor, A Woman's Europe: True Stories:
qualifier: especially among people of East European ancestry
glosses: A grandmother.
examples: text: Only two women, typical "babas" (peasant women) in the house from which I got my quilt and bedcloth, could be coaxed to pose;
ref: 1914, Russell Sage Foundation, Wage-earning Pittsburgh:
text: Laura hadn't known that anyone's mother could look like that, like the babas you sometimes saw downtown, bandaged in kerchiefs and aprons, sitting toothless in stockinged feet on small verandahs, peeling potatoes or beets or just shaking their heads and grimacing.
ref: 1986, Janice Kulyk Keefer, The Paris-Napoli Express:
text: According to some, new volunteers are becoming more difficult to recruit and there are dark suggestions that 'money is being made on the backs of the babas', the dedicated, but ageing ladies who still spend countless hours of their time preparing foodstuffs for the occasion.
ref: 2003, Colin Michael Hall, Liz Sharples, editors, Food Tourism Around The World: Development, Management and Markets:
glosses: An old woman, especially a traditional old woman from an eastern European culture.
examples: text: The first time I signed my exercise I wrote "Pisistratus Caxton" in my best round-hand. "And dey call your baba a scholar!" said the Doctor, contemptuously.
ref: 1849, Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Caxtons:
text: "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter. I've missed you so." "I've missed you too, baba."
ref: 1998, Mulan (movie)
text: Okay. Okay. Fine, baba. Let's just do it before something else goes wrong.
ref: 2002, Bend It Like Beckham (movie)
text: "Do not be disrespectful, son. Look at me." "Baba, were you a Savaki?"
ref: 2003, House of Sand and Fog (movie)
qualifier: especially among people of Indian or Chinese ancestry
glosses: A father.
examples: text: While I was in Port Alberni, three babas came to Canada to raise money ...
ref: 1995, Hugh J.M. Johnston, Tara Singh Bains, The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh:
text: But according to Ray, 'all the babas my uncle knew were genuine. None of them was exposed. They were fairly humble people, not show-offs like the Maharishi ...
ref: 2004, Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker:
text: Most babas had little contact with written culture and are not therefore named in books and treatises.
ref: 2006, Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects Of The Sultan: Culture And Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire:
topics: Islam
lifestyle
religion
glosses: A holy man, a spiritual leader.
examples: text: That is to say, if I do not take care, I shall go on calling my darling 'Baba' till she is as old as her mamma, and has a dozen Babas of her own.
ref: 1876, Sir George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay:
text: For my child is dead—my baba is dead!
ref: 1904, Rudyard Kipling, Traffics and Discoveries:
glosses: A baby, child.
examples: text: Oh, it's storytime! Let me get my baba.
ref: 2004, House (TV, episode 1.14)
glosses: In baby talk, often used for a variety of words beginning with b, such as bottle or blanket.
Related terms: baba au rhum
baba ganoush
Baba Yaga
babulya
babushka
babusia
babusya
rum baba