Word.ws English Dictionary

ali baba

/ˈælɪˌbɑbə/

ali baba is the alternative letter-case form of Ali Baba.

Proper noun capitalized: Ali Baba

Ali Baba

  1. The fictional protagonist of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, famous for his encounter with forty thieves and their treasure trove cave that opens on the command "open sesame".

Noun capitalized: Ali Baba

Ali Baba (plural Ali Babas)

  1. (slang) An extremely lucky person, especially one who acquires a large fortune by luck or by chance.
  2. (US, ethnic, slang, slur) An Iraqi.
  3. (attributive) A large container, such as a jar or a basket, with a flat base and usually a rounded body that tapers to a narrower neck.
    • Towering over all these are the huge Ali Baba baskets, square at the bottom, round at the top, and fitted with square covers that pull down like a Dutch smoker's cap.2009, Martha Reinhard Smallwood Field [Catherine Cole, pseud.], The Story of the Old French Market, ca. 1916, no pagination, quoted in Daniel H. Usner, Jr., Indian Work: Language and Livelihood in...
    • We found little piles in the oddest places - the oddest being within an Ali Baba jar some six feet high.2004 May 11, Sgt Len Scott RAPC, “My Billets in Algiers: A Pub, a Casino and a Bank”, in BBC, retrieved 16 Apr 2023

Forms of ali baba

pluralali babas
pluralAli Babas

Origin of ali baba

From Arabic علي بابا. The use of Ali Baba to designate a type of container originates from the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (see the use as proper noun below), suggesting the appearance of the oil jars in which the thieves hide in the story.

Words formed from ali baba

Questions about ali baba

What does ali baba mean?
Ali baba means the fictional protagonist of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, famous for his encounter with forty thieves and their treasure trove cave that opens on the command "open sesame".
What is ali baba the alternative letter-case form of?
Ali baba is the alternative letter-case form of Ali Baba.
What part of speech is ali baba?
Ali baba can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce ali baba?
Ali baba is pronounced /ˈælɪˌbɑbə/.

Words near ali baba in the dictionary

  1. alhidad
  2. alhidade
  3. alhidades
  4. alhidads
  5. Ali
  6. ali baba
  7. Ali Baba bag
  8. Ali Baba bags
  9. ali babas
  10. Ali Sabieh
  11. ali'i

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ali baba (page history and authors); Ali Baba (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-Ali Baba.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ali baba.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ali_baba. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.