baba

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, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Greek, Marathi, Nepali, Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Yoruba, Shona, Zulu
• grandmother: many Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian, Russian, Czech and Polish), Yiddish, Japanese
• grandfather: Azerbaijani
• 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 (ʾabū) and أَب‎ (ʾab), as well as the Turkish word ata; see also Papak), and is linguistically related to the common European word papa and the word pope, having the same Indo-European origin.

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.

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

• baba on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• AABB, Abba, abab, abba

baba (plural babas)

1. baby

• babetjie

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

1. to treat with gentle care, to coddle

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish بابا‎ (baba).

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

baba m (definite singular babi, definite plural baballarë)

1. father

• atë

• Baba Dimri

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

baba (definite accusative babanı, plural babalar)

1. grandfather

• (with regards to gender): nənə (grandmother)
• (with regards to ancestry): nəvə (grandchild)

• (General Cebuano) IPA^(key): /baʔbaʔ/
• Rhymes: -aʔ
• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

baba

1. the mouth
2. the mouth of a river
3. an outlet, aperture or orifice
4. talk; empty boasting, promises or claims

• (General Cebuano) IPA^(key): /ˈbaba/
• Rhymes: -a
• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

baba

1. to piggyback; to carry someone on the back
2. to hit, be hit or injured in the mouth

For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:baba.

• baba sa atay
• babaan
• babaon
• sa baba sa buaya

baba

1. father
2. dad

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

• IPA^(key): /baba/

baba f

1. crone, hag
2. coward, milksop
3. (informal) girl, chick

• baba in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu

Unknown.

baba (plural babanim a)

1. Title of the second chief butcher

baba

1. plural of babli (a featherless fowl)

From Polish baba, probably via French

• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

baba

1. baba, babka (type of cake)

Borrowed 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.

• IPA^(key): /ba.ba/

baba m (plural babas)

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

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

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

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

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aː

baba

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

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

bā̀ba m (possessed form bā̀ban)

1. father
2. Used as a term of address for a man of appropriate age to be one's father, or who shares one's father's name.

bā̀bā m (plural bā̀bànni, possessed form bā̀ban)

1. eunuch
2. impotent man

bābà f (possessed form bābàn)

1. paternal aunt

bābā m (possessed form bāban)

1. indigo (the plant, or the dye from it)

bába or bâbâ

1. mouth

An onomatopoeia.[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɒbɒ]

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ba‧ba

baba (plural babák)

1. doll (toy in the form of a human)
2. baby, infant (very young human child, particularly from birth until walking is mastered)
3. (in the possessive, folk songs) baby, darling (term of endearment for a girlfriend, or less often, a boyfriend)

baba (comparative babább, superlative legbabább)

1. (slang) swell, neat (exceptionally good, pleasing or enjoyable)

baba

1. Rōmaji transcription of ばば

• baaba

• IPA^(key): /βàːβǎꜜ/

The first a is pronounced long.[1]

As for Tonal Class, Benson (1964) classifies this term into Class 6 with a disyllabic stem, together with mũgwacĩ, nyamũ, and so on.

• (Kiambu)

• (Limuru) As for Tonal Class, Yukawa (1981) classifies this term into a group including guka, gũtũ, mũguĩ, mũtwe, nyamũ, ruo, rũhĩ (pl. hĩ), rũkũ (pl. ngũ), taata (“my aunt”), ũta (pl. mota), ũthiũ (pl. mothiũ), and so on.[2]

• (Ndia) The same underlying pattern as that of rũhĩ and mothiũ.[3]
• (Nyeri) The same underlying pattern as that of mothiũ and ruo.[3]

baba class 1

1. my father, dad

• (thy) thoguo; (his/her) ithe

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaba/

baba f (diminutive babka)

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

• baba in Ernst Muka/Mucke (St. Petersburg and Prague 1911–28): Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow / Wörterbuch der nieder-wendischen Sprache und ihrer Dialekte. Reprinted 2008, Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag.
• baba in Manfred Starosta (1999): Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch. Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag.

baba

1. father

Voiced bapa.

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

baba (plural baba-baba, informal first-person possessive babaku, informal second-person possessive babamu, third-person possessive babanya)

1. father (male parent)

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

baba

1. father

   La katskats tasàk à kəslah iyaw aŋatà à ahəŋ la baba aŋatà gà, tanəfà Yesu. (Mata 4:22)

   And immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Jesus. (Matthew 4:22)

From Proto-Bantu *bààbá.

• wawa

baba class 1a (plural wababa)

1. father

baba

1. water
2. rain, rainwater

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

From Proto-Nguni [Term?], from Proto-Bantu *-bába.

-baba

1. to taste bitter

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

• IPA^(key): /ˈba.ba/

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

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

For the meaning of "grandmother" see babcia.

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

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

baba m pers

1. (Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism) baba (a holy man, a spiritual leader)

• baba in Polish dictionaries at PWN

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈba.bɐ/
• Rhymes: -aba

baba f (plural babas)

1. drool, dribble

• babar-se

baba

1. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present indicative of babar
2. second-person singular (tu, sometimes used with você) affirmative imperative of babar

• IPA^(key): [ˈba.ba]

baba

1. definite singular of babă

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

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

bȁba f (Cyrillic spelling ба̏ба)

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

• (grandmother; grandma): báka, nena

• “baba” in Hrvatski jezični portal

From Proto-Bantu *bààbá.

baba class 1a

1. father

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaba/

baba f (genitive singular baby, nominative plural baby, genitive plural báb, 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

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

• baba in Slovak dictionaries at korpus.sk

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

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

bába f (genitive bábe, nominative plural bábe)

1. old woman, hag

From the hypothesized Vulgar Latin *baba (“drooling, infantile talk”), ultimately imitative of children speech on the pattern of the repeated syllable ba.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbaba/, [ˈbaβa]

baba f (plural babas)

1. drool, dribble

   La chacha lavaba, y mientras lavaba, la baba se le caía.

   The maid washed, and as she washed, she drooled.

• cieno
• lama

• “baba” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

From Proto-Bantu *bààbá.

baba (n class, plural baba)

1. father (male parent)

• mama

• ubaba

From Proto-Nguni [Term?], from Proto-Bantu *-bába.

-bába

1. (intransitive) to taste bitter

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

baba

1. low

baba

1. (anatomy) chin

baba

1. to descend

From Cebuano baba.

baba

1. to piggyback

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

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

baba (definite accusative babayı, plural babalar)

1. father
2. Saint (as in Gül Baba)

• baba in Turkish dictionaries at Türk Dil Kurumu

From Proto-Slavic *baba.

baba f

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

From Proto-Nguni [Term?], from Proto-Bantu *-bába.

-bába

1. (intransitive) to taste hot, spicy
2. (intransitive) to taste bitter

See the etymology of the main entry.

baba

1. simple singular of ubaba

• C. M. Doke; B. W. Vilakazi (1972), “ɓaɓa”, in Zulu-English Dictionary, →ISBN: “ɓaɓa (3.9) v.”
• C. M. Doke; B. W. Vilakazi (1972), “ɓaɓa”, in Zulu-English Dictionary, →ISBN: “ɓaɓa (3-5.4) voc. interj.”