Latvian

Proper noun

Baba f

1. A female given name.

Usage notes

• Common in Latvia in the 17th and 18th century, but unused today.

Related terms

• Baiba

References

• Klāvs Siliņš: Latviešu personvārdu vārdnīca. Riga "Zinātne" 1990, ISBN 5-7966-0278-0
• Population Register of Latvia: Baba did not occur as only given name of anyone in Latvia on May 21st 2010.

English

Noun

baba ‎(plural babas)

1. A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.
2. (esp. among people of East European ancestry) A grandmother.
   • 1993, Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880-1929, University of Chicago Press

     My baba, Ksenia Dubinsky, tells me that my education makes her proud.

   • 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.

   • 2004, A Woman's Europe: True Stories, edited by MaryBeth Bond

     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;

3. An old woman, especially a traditional old woman from an eastern European culture.
   • 1914, Russell Sage Foundation, Wage-earning Pittsburgh

     Only two women, typical "babas" (peasant women) in the house from which I got my quilt and bedcloth, could be coaxed to pose;

   • 1986, Janice Kulyk Keefer, The Paris-Napoli Express

     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.

   • 2003, Food Tourism Around The World: Development, Management and Markets, edited by Colin Michael Hall and Liz Sharples

     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.

4. (esp. among people of Indian ancestry) A father.
   • 1849, Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Caxtons

     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.

   • 1998, Mulan (movie)

     "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter. I've missed you so." "I've missed you too, baba."

   • 2002, Bend It Like Beckham (movie)

     Okay. Okay. Fine, baba. Let's just do it before something else goes wrong.

   • 2003, House of Sand and Fog (movie)

     "Do not be disrespectful, son. Look at me." "Baba, were you a Savaki?"

5. (Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism) A holy man, a spiritual leader.
   • 1995, Hugh J.M. Johnston and Tara Singh Bains, The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh

     While I was in Port Alberni, three babas came to Canada to raise money ...

   • 2004, Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker

     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 ...

   • 2006, Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects Of The Sultan: Culture And Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire

     Most babas had little contact with written culture and are not therefore named in books and treatises.

6. (India, dated) A baby, child.
   • 1876, Sir George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay

     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.

   • 1904, Rudyard Kipling, Traffics and Discoveries

     For my child is dead--my baba is dead!

7. In baby talk, often used for a variety of words beginning with b, such as bottle or blanket.
   • 2004, House (TV, episode 1.14)

     Oh, it's storytime! Let me get my baba.

Related terms

• baba au rhum
• rhumbaba, rum baba
• baba ganoush
• babushka

Translations

Anagrams

• abab
• abba, ABBA

External links

• baba on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Afrikaans

Noun

baba ‎(plural babas)

1. baby

Related terms

• babetjie

Verb

baba ‎(present baba, present participle babaende, past participle gebaba)

1. to treat with gentle care, to coddle

Albanian

Etymology

Borrowing from Ottoman Turkish بابا ‎(baba).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [baba] (Tosk)
• IPA^(key): [bɑba] (Gheg)

Noun

baba m (definite singular babi, definite plural baballarë)

1. father

Synonyms

• atë

Derived terms

• Baba Dimri

Cebuano

Noun

baba

1. mouth

Verb

baba

1. To piggyback, to carry someone of one's back.

Crimean Tatar

Noun

baba

1. father
2. dad

Declension

Czech

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /baba/

Noun

baba f

1. crone, hag
2. coward, milksop

Declension

Related terms

Dagbani

Etymology

Unknown.

Noun

baba ‎(plural babanim a)

1. Title of the second chief butcher

Noun

baba

1. plural of babli (a featherless fowl)

Finnish

Etymology

< Polish baba, probably via French

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

Noun

baba

1. baba, babka (type of cake)

Declension

French

Etymology

Borrowing from Polish baba, introduced in France in the eighteenth century at the court of Stanisław Leszczyński, king of Poland, duke of Lorraine and father-in-law of Louis XV.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.ba/

Noun

baba m ‎(plural babas)

1. baba (type of cake)
   • baba au rhum‎ ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)

References

• “baba” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

German

Etymology

A link of the term with the American bye-bye is possible but not certain.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -aː

Interjection

baba

1. (informal, chiefly in Austria) see you, so long

Usage notes

• In Austria, especially East Austria, baba is the most commonly used informal term for saying "goodbye".

Hiligaynon

Noun

bába, bâbâ

1. mouth

Hungarian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɒbɒ]
• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

Noun

baba ‎(plural babák)

1. doll
2. baby (very young child)

Declension

Derived terms

Japanese

Romanization

baba

1. rōmaji reading of ばば

Lower Sorbian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈbaba]

Noun

baba f ‎(diminutive babka)

1. midwife
2. old woman
3. woman
4. sponge cake

Declension

Luo

Noun

baba

1. father

Malay

Etymology

Voiced bapa.

Pronunciation

• (Johor-Selangor) IPA^(key): /babə/
• (Riau-Lingga) IPA^(key): /baba/
• Rhymes: -abə, -bə, -ə
• Rhymes: -ə

Noun

baba

1. father (male parent)

Synonyms

• bapa (bapanda, bapai, bapak, bapang, papa)
• ayah (ayahanda, aya, yah)
• abah (aba, bah)
• rama

Ngarluma

Noun

baba

1. water
2. rain, rainwater

References

• Aboriginal Languages of the Pilbara: Ngarluma (1990); HG

Polish

Etymology 1

From Proto-Slavic *baba, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *bā́ˀbāˀ. From nursery language.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaba/

Noun

baba f ‎(diminutive babka or babcia, augmentative babsko or babisko)

1. (colloquial) woman
2. (colloquial) wife, girlfriend
3. A type of a cake
4. crone, hag
5. (obsolete) grandmother

Declension

Usage notes

For the meaning of "grandmother" see babcia.

References

• Brückner, Aleksander (1927) Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego [Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language] (in Polish), Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, published 1985

Related terms

• (verb) babieć
• (nouns) babcia f, babiniec m, babka f, babon m, babsztyl m, babunia f
• (adjectives) babi, babski

Etymology 2

Noun

baba m pers

1. baba (a holy man, a spiritual leader)

Declension

Portuguese

Etymology

From the hypothesized Vulgar Latin *baba, ultimately imitative of children speech on the pattern of the repeated syllable ba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈba.ba/
• Rhymes: -aba

Noun

baba f (plural babas)

1. drool, dribble

See also

• babar-se

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈba.ba]

Noun

baba

1. definite singular of babă

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bâba/
• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

Noun

bȁba f ‎(Cyrillic spelling ба̏ба)

1. grandmother
2. granny, grandma
3. (usually pejorative) old woman
4. (pejorative) female person

Declension

Synonyms

• (grandmother; grandma): báka, nena

References

• “baba” in Hrvatski jezični portal

Shona

Noun

baba

1. father

Slovak

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

Noun

baba f ‎(genitive singular baby, nominative plural baby, declension pattern of žena)

1. (colloquial) old woman
2. (colloquial) girl
3. (oldfashioned) midwife
4. (oldfashioned) doll
5. (oldfashioned) puppet
6. (oldfashioned) hash brown zemiaková baba, now zemiaková placka

Declension

Derived terms

• babský ‎(adj)
• babsky ‎(adverb)
• babisko

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbàːba/
• Tonal orthography: bába

Noun

bába f ‎(genitive bábe, nominative plural bábe)

1. old woman, hag

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

From the hypothesized Vulgar Latin *baba, ultimately imitative of children speech on the pattern of the repeated syllable ba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaβa/

Noun

baba f ‎(plural babas)

1. drool, dribble

   La chacha lavaba, y mientras lavaba, la baba se le caía.‎ ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) (classroom example of b/v use)

Related terms

See also

• cieno
• lama

Swahili

Noun

baba (n class, plural baba)

1. father (male parent)

Coordinate terms

• mama

Tagalog

Adverb

baba

1. low

Noun

baba

1. (anatomy) chin

Verb

baba

1. to descend
2. to piggyback

Turkish

Etymology

Likely from reduplication of ba, from child speak. May be related to ata.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɑˈbɑ/
• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

Noun

baba ‎(definite accusative babayı, plural babalar)

1. father
2. Saint (as in Gül Baba)

Declension

Derived terms

Upper Sorbian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

Noun

baba f

1. old woman, grandmother
2. midwife
3. dough, pastry
4. pelican (bird)

Zulu

Noun

baba

1. simple singular of ubaba