bab

Clipping of babby (“baby”).

• IPA^(key): /bæb/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æb

bab (plural babs)

1. (UK, informal) Baby
2. (fishing, East Anglia) A bait for eels, consisting of a bundle of live worms.
   • 2006 February 1, John Meiklejohn, “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, George Christopher Davies, 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, William Guy, 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, John Meiklejohn, “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.

• labab

From French barbe.

• IPA^(key): /bab/

bab

1. beard, whiskers

• bab kabrit (“goatee”)
• bab pou bab (“face to face”)

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

• IPA^(key): [ˈbɒb]

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒb

bab (usually uncountable, plural babok)

1. bean

   Synonyms: (regional) fuszulyka, (regional) paszuly, (obsolete; today “peas”) borsó

• bab in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN
• bab in Ittzés, Nóra (ed.). A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (‘A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published A–ez as of 2024)

From Malay bab, from Arabic بَاب (bāb).

• IPA^(key): /bab/, [ˈbap̚]

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -bap, -ap, -p
• Hyphenation: bab

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

1. chapter (of a book)
2. door, gate

   Synonyms: gapura, pintu

3. case, matter

   Synonyms: hal, masalah

• “bab” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

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”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “bab”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

From Arabic بَاب (bāb).

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

bab (Jawi spelling باب, plural bab-bab, informal 1st possessive babku, 2nd possessive babmu, 3rd possessive babnya)

1. chapter (section in a book)

• “bab” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.

bab

1. father or paternal uncle

bab

1. Alternative form of babe

• bav

bab m

1. father

From Pre-Palauan *babo, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *babaw, from Proto-Austronesian *babaw.

bab

1. above, top

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

bab f

1. genitive plural of baba

• 𐴁𐴝𐴁𐴢 (bab) — Hanifi Rohingya script

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

bab (Hanifi spelling 𐴁𐴝𐴁𐴢)

1. father

   Synonym: baf

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• (Central Romagnol): IPA^(key): [ˈbaɐ̯b]

bab m (plural bëb)

1. Alternative form of ba
   • 1920, Olindo Guerrini, edited by Zanichelli, Sonetti romagnoli, published 1967:

     Allora e' babb d' sta bela zuvintò

     And then the father of this beautiful youth

• Masotti, Adelmo (1996) Vocabolario Romagnolo Italiano [Romagnol-Italian dictionary] (in Italian), Bologna: Zanichelli, page 51

• bap (Puter, Vallader)

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)

Compare bob, likely cognate of English bob, from Middle English bobben (“to strike, to shake”).

bab (third-person singular simple present babs, present participle babbin, simple past bab'd, past participle bab'd)

1. synonym of bob (“to move up and down”)
2. to dance, to hop
   • 1733, Allan Ramsay, “Christ’s Kirk on the Green”, in Poems by Allan Ramsay‎, page 52:

     The lasses bab’d about the reel / Gar’d a’ their hurdies wallop

     The girls danced around the ring / Making their bottoms gallop

From older Scots bob; compare Middle English bobbe (“cluster of fruit; spray of leaves”).

bab (plural babs)

1. nosegay, a bunch of flowers; a tassel, a bunch of ribbons
2. (in compounds) something fine, something decorated

   wooer bab ― a garter tied below the knee

3. a lump, dollop
4. (figuratively) a lumpish person, an idiot

From Northern Middle English bab, a variant of babe.

bab (plural babs)

1. (obsolete) a babe, baby

• “bab, v.” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
• “bobben v.¹”, in Middle English Compendium, 2019 November
• “bab, n.¹” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
• “bob, n.¹” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
• “bob, n.¹.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
• “bobbe”, in Middle English Compendium, 2019 November
• “bab, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /pap/

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

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “bab”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎, 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• MacLennan, Malcolm (1925) A Pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, Edinburgh: J. Grant, →OCLC

• IPA^(key): /baːb/

bab

1. Soft mutation of pab.

bab (m)

1. father (sort form)