Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Baba


Ba′ba

,
Noun.
[F.]
A kind of plum cake.

Definition 2024


Baba

Baba

See also: Appendix:Variations of "baba"

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

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.

baba

baba

See also: Appendix:Variations of "baba"

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

Translations

Anagrams

External links


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

Noun

baba m (definite singular babi, definite plural baballarë)

  1. father

Synonyms

Derived terms


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

Inflection of baba (Kotus type 9/kala, no gradation)
nominative baba babat
genitive baban babojen
partitive babaa baboja
illative babaan baboihin
singular plural
nominative baba babat
accusative nom. baba babat
gen. baban
genitive baban babojen
babainrare
partitive babaa baboja
inessive babassa baboissa
elative babasta baboista
illative babaan baboihin
adessive baballa baboilla
ablative babalta baboilta
allative baballe baboille
essive babana baboina
translative babaksi baboiksi
instructive baboin
abessive babatta baboitta
comitative baboineen

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


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

Inflection (stem in long/high vowel, back harmony)
singular plural
nominative baba babák
accusative babát babákat
dative babának babáknak
instrumental babával babákkal
causal-final babáért babákért
translative babává babákká
terminative babáig babákig
essive-formal babaként babákként
essive-modal
inessive babában babákban
superessive babán babákon
adessive babánál babáknál
illative babába babákba
sublative babára babákra
allative babához babákhoz
elative babából babákból
delative babáról babákról
ablative babától babáktól
Possessive forms of baba
possessor single possession multiple possessions
1st person sing. babám babáim
2nd person sing. babád babáid
3rd person sing. babája babái
1st person plural babánk babáink
2nd person plural babátok babáitok
3rd person plural babájuk babáik

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

Noun

baba

  1. father (male parent)

Synonyms


Ngarluma

Noun

baba

  1. water
  2. rain, rainwater

References


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

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


Swahili

Noun

baba (n class, plural baba)

  1. father (male parent)

Coordinate terms


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