babbitt at CMU American English spelling Of Explained:

['bæbıt]

Babbitt at English => English (English Etymology) Of Explained:

"conventional complacent materialistic American businessman," 1923, from George Babbitt, title character of Sinclair Lewis' novel (1922). ///

Babbitt at English => English (Longman) Of Explained:

a book by Sinclair Lewis about a businessman called George Babbitt who lives in a small US town. People think he is a boring man, because he thinks only about his own business and his position in local society, and he is not interested in other things in life. //

Babbitt at English => English (Moby Thesaurus II) Of Explained:

55 Moby Thesaurus words for "Babbitt":
Middle American, Philistine, anal character, arriviste, boeotian,
boob, boor, bounder, bourgeois, burgher, cad, churl, clown,
compulsive character, conformer, conformist, conventionalist,
epicier, formalist, groundling, guttersnipe, hooligan,
ill-bred fellow, looby, lout, low fellow, methodologist,
middle-class type, middlebrow, model child, mucker, nouveau riche,
organization man, parrot, parvenu, peasant, pedant, perfectionist,
plastic person, precisian, precisianist, ribald, rough, roughneck,
rowdy, ruffian, sheep, square, teenybopper, trimmer, upstart,
vulgarian, vulgarist, yes-man, yokel

Babbitt at English => English (Websters 1913) Of Explained:

Babbitt \Bab"bitt\, v. t.
To line with Babbitt metal.

babbitt at English => English (WordNet) Of Explained:

babbitt
n : an alloy of tin with some copper and antimony; an
anti-friction lining for bearings [syn: {Babbitt metal}]
v : line with a Babbitt metal

babbitt at English (WD) Of Explained:

==English==
Inter: Webster 191 » 3

Pronunciation

* Inter: rhymes » æbɪt

Etymology 1

Named for American inventor Isaac Babbitt (1799–1862)

Noun

Inter: en-nou » n

Babbitt metal.

Translations

Inter: trans-top » Babbitt metal

• Belarusian: Inter: t- » be|бабіт|m|tr=babit|sc=Cyrl
• Bulgarian: Inter: t- » bg|бабит|m|tr=babit|sc=Cyrl
• Estonian: Inter: t- » et|babiit
• German: Inter: t- » de|Lagermetall

Inter: trans-mi » d

Kazakh: Inter: t » kk|баббит|tr=babbit|sc=Cyrl

Romanian: Inter: t- » ro|babbit

Russian: Inter: t+ » ru|баббит|m|tr=bábbit|sc=Cyrl

Ukrainian: Inter: t+ » uk|бабіт|tr=babit|sc=Cyrl

Inter: trans-botto » m

Verb

Inter: en-ver » b

Inter: transitiv » e To line with Babbitt metal to reduce friction.

Etymology 2

Named after the title character in Sinclair Lewis' 1922 novel, Babbit. Also popularised by the George and Ira Gershwin song "The Babbitt and the Bromide," featured first in the 1927 musical "Funny Face" and later in the film Ziegfeld Follies (1945).

Alternative forms

Babbitt

Noun

Inter: en-nou » n

A person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals

1. 1930 The Literary digest, Volume 105, Funk and Wagnalls, p21
2. : One speaks of a babbitt habit, a babbitt era. Nothing is more true. America recognized itself in Babbitt, it demurred, but it also admired.
3. 2002 Tamkang review, Volume 33, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, p158
4. : ... a "babbitt" is a person full of self-confident bluster who is nevertheless a narrowminded philistine and a hypocrite.
5. 2003 William Hyland, George Gershwin: a new biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, p116
6. : Ira relished telling the story that Fred Astaire took him aside and said he knew what a babbitt was, but what was a bromide?

   References

   * Inter: R:Webster 191 » 3

Translation: et » babbitt
Translation: ko » babbitt
Translation: ku » babbitt
Translation: my » babbitt
Translation: nl » babbitt
Translation: ru » babbitt
Translation: ta » babbitt

Babbitt at English (WD) Of Explained:

==English==

Alternative forms

babbitt

Etymology

Named after the title character in Sinclair Lewis' 1922 novel, Babbit. Also popularised by the George and Ira Gershwin song "The Babbitt and the Bromide," featured first in the 1927 musical "Funny Face" and later in the film Ziegfeld Follies (1945).

Noun

Inter: en-nou » n

A person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals

1927 Ira Gershwin, "The Babbit and the Bromide," from the stage musical "Funny Face" (1927). Lyrics collected in: Louis Kronenberger (2008) An Anthology of Light Verse, p234

: A Babbitt met a Bromide on the avenue one day. They held a conversation in their own peculiar way.

1951 The Georgia review, Volume 5, University of Georgia, p150

: If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a Babbitt. Say, there's nothing more wonderful than defying middle-class conventions.

2009 Phillip G. Payne, Dead last: the public memory of Warren G. Hardings scandalous legacy,'' Ohio University Press, p12

: In this sense Harding was a Babbitt. Intellectuals and journalists rejected Harding as being as empty as the Sinclair Lewis character.

Translation: ar » Babbitt
Translation: et » Babbitt
Translation: ru » Babbitt

Related words:

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