Etymology

As one of the first utterances many babies are able to say, (like , , and ) has come to be used in many languages as a term for various family members:

• father: Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hindi, Bangla, Persian, Swahili, ...
• grandmother: many Slavic language (such as Bulgarian, Russian and Polish), Yiddish, Japanese, ...
• baby: Afrikaans, ...

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 from . The Middle Eastern word (as in ) is rather a term of endearment, and is ultimately derived from (from ; as opposed to the Arabic words and , as well as the Turkish word ; see also Papak) , and is linguistically related to the common European word and the word , having the same Indo-European origin.

Noun

1. A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.
2. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Declension