bab

Clipping of babby (“babber”)

bab (plural babs)

1. (Britain, informal) Baby
2. (fishing, East Anglia) A bait for eels, consisting of a bundle of live worms.
   • 2006 February 1, Meiklejohn, John, “Babbing for eels”, in BBC - WW2 People's War‎:

     The worms were threaded onto the yarn until we had 4 or 5 feet of big juicy worms threaded through. We would coil it all up and put an old rusty nut at the centre and tie it on a bit of string on an old ash pole — this was the bab.

• (baby): see Thesaurus:baby
• (bait): clod

bab (third-person singular simple present babs, present participle babbing, simple past and past participle babbed)

1. (intransitive, fishing, East Anglia) To fish for eels using a bab.
   • 1884, Davies, George Christopher, Norfolk Broads and Rivers, W. Blackwood and sons, page 244:

     The babbers follow the eels, and you may see fifteen boats as close together as possible, babbing away, and catching as much as four stone-weight of eels per boat of a night.

   • 1948, Guy, William, Mostly Memories: Some Digressions, C. J. Cousland, page 24:

     Sometimes we trolled or set liggers for pike, we seldom babbed for eels, it was such a slimy job.

   • 2006 February 1, Meiklejohn, John, “Babbing for eels”, in BBC - WW2 People's War‎:

     Another classic example was babbing for eels; he would come along and say — ‘Goodnight for babbing, make you some babs’.

• B.B.A., BBA, abb, abb.

From French barbe

bab

1. beard

From a Slavic language, compare Serbo-Croatian bob, Slovak bôb, Russian боб (bob, “bean”), from Proto-Slavic *bobъ.

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɒb]

• Audio

  (file)

bab (plural babok)

1. bean

• fuszulyka (regional)
• paszuly (regional)

• babzsák
• kávébab
• szójabab

From Malay bab. From Arabic بَاب‎ (bāb).

bab (plural bab-bab, first-person possessive babku, second-person possessive babmu, third-person possessive babnya)

1. chapter

bab m (genitive singular bab, nominative plural babanna)

1. Alternative form of bob (“bob; fringe”)

bab m (genitive singular bab, nominative plural babanna)

1. Alternative form of bob (“stump, target”)

• "bab" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.

• bav

bab m

1. father

From Arabic بَاب‎ (bāb)

• IPA^(key): /bap/
• Rhymes: -bap, -ap

bab

1. chapter (section in a book)

bab

1. father or paternal uncle

From Sanskrit वप्र (vapra). Cognate with Sylheti ꠛꠣꠙ (baf), Assamese বাপ (bap), Bengali বাপ (bap), Hindi बाप (bāp)

bab

1. father

• (Puter, Vallader) bap

From Late Latin *babbus. Compare Sardinian babbu.

• IPA^(key): [baːp]

bab m (plural babs)

1. (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran) father

• mamma

• pader (term to address a priest or monk)

bab m (genitive singular baba, plural baban or babannan)

1. tuft, tassel
2. child's excrement (hence abab)
3. stain
   • Bithidh sin 'n a bhab air fhad 's is beò e.

     That will be a stain on him as long as he lives.

• abab

• Faclair Gàidhlig Dwelly Air Loidhne, Dwelly, Edward (1911), Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan/The Illustrated [Scottish] Gaelic-English Dictionary (10th ed.), Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• A Pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language (John Grant, Edinburgh, 1925, Complied by Malcolm MacLennan)