Word.ws English Dictionary

babian

babian is the obsolete form of baboon.

Meaning of baboon

Noun

baboon (plural baboons)

  1. An Old World monkey of the genus Papio, having dog-like muzzles and large canine teeth, cheek pouches, a short tail, and naked callosities on the buttocks.
    • Mix swallowed the comment he wanted to make, that the council hall stank like a congress of baboons. But he was in no position to insult his host, nor should he. The man was only expressing the attitude of his time.1971, Philip José Farmer, Down in the Black Gang: and others; a story collection, Nelson Doubleday, page 79
  2. (colloquial, derogatory) A foolish, stupid or incompetent person.
    1. (colloquial, derogatory, ethnic, offensive, slur, highly derogatory) A black person.
      • The 50-year-old steel worker said he had meant to type Sawyers should win the "buffoon d'Or". He claimed a misspelling, of "bafoon", had autocorrected on his device to "baboon".2021 November, “Romaine Sawyers: Albion fan jailed for racist post loses appeal”, in BBC

Forms of babian

pluralbabians

Questions about babian

What is babian the obsolete form of?
Babian is the obsolete form of baboon.

Words near babian in the dictionary

  1. Babi
  2. babi hong
  3. babi panggang
  4. Babiak
  5. Babiaks
  6. babian
  7. babians
  8. Babiarz
  9. Babiarzes
  10. Babic
  11. Babich

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: babian (page history and authors); baboon (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.

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