baba

Etymology

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, Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Greek, Marathi, Mingrelian, Nepali, Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Yoruba, Shona, Zulu * grandmother: many Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian, Russian, Czech and Polish), Romanian, Yiddish, Japanese * grandfather: Azerbaijani, Zulu (father, grandfather) * 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); see also Papak), and is linguistically related to the common European word papa and the word pope, having the same Indo-European origin. The Chinese word "baba", meaning father comes from 爸爸.

noun

1. A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.
2. (especially among people of East European ancestry) A grandmother.
   My baba, Ksenia Dubinsky, tells me that my education makes her proud. 1993, Karen Dubinsky, Improper Advances: Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880-1929, University of Chicago Press
   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.
   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; 2004, MaryBeth Bond, editor, A Woman's Europe: True Stories
3. An old woman, especially a traditional old woman from an eastern European culture.
   Only two women, typical "babas" (peasant women) in the house from which I got my quilt and bedcloth, could be coaxed to pose; 1914, Russell Sage Foundation, Wage-earning Pittsburgh
   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. 1986, Janice Kulyk Keefer, The Paris-Napoli Express
   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. 2003, Colin Michael Hall, Liz Sharples, editors, Food Tourism Around The World: Development, Management and Markets
4. (especially among people of Indian or Chinese ancestry) A father.
   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. 1849, Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Caxtons
   "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter. I've missed you so." "I've missed you too, baba." 1998, Mulan (movie)
   Okay. Okay. Fine, baba. Let's just do it before something else goes wrong. 2002, Bend It Like Beckham (movie)
   "Do not be disrespectful, son. Look at me." "Baba, were you a Savaki?" 2003, House of Sand and Fog (movie)
5. (Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism) A holy man, a spiritual leader.
   While I was in Port Alberni, three babas came to Canada to raise money ... 1995, Hugh J.M. Johnston, Tara Singh Bains, The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh
   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 ... 2004, Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker
   Most babas had little contact with written culture and are not therefore named in books and treatises. 2006, Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects Of The Sultan: Culture And Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire
6. (British India) A baby, child.
   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. 1876, Sir George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay
   For my child is dead—my baba is dead! 1904, Rudyard Kipling, Traffics and Discoveries
7. In baby talk, often used for a variety of words beginning with b, such as bottle or blanket.
   Oh, it's storytime! Let me get my baba. 2004, House (TV, episode 1.14)