babushki

Noun

babushka (plural babushkas or babushki)

1. An Eastern European old woman.
   • Yet, much as I loved to listen to it, standing there in the heat of all the lighted candles and dressed in my heavy shuba and felt boots, I invariably, halfway through the service, would begin to feel an intolerable pain across my shoulders which would spread across my back, gradually getting...1984, Eugenie Fraser, “Before the Storm”, in The House by the Dvina: A Russian Childhood, Mainstream Publishing, →ISBN, pages 126–127

   Synonyms:

   baba

   1. A Russian grandmother.
      • I tell thee what, Babushka! I have no time to waste with thee in idle words.1834, Michael Zakosken, translated by “a Russian Lady of high rank and her two amiable daughters”, edited by Frederic Chamier, The Young Muscovite, or the Poles in Russia, volume I, London: Cochrane...
2. A traditional floral headscarf worn by an Eastern European woman, tied under the chin.
   • White Parian bust of smiling Russian peasant woman - with babushka covering head, lovely detail work, 21½″ tall1959 September, HOBBIES—The Magazine for Collectors, volume 64, number 7, Chicago: Lightner Publishing Corporation, page 80
3. A Russian doll, a matryoshka.
   • The present inhabitants of the Kremlin […] have rigged the Constitution in a series of articles which fit into each other like those wooden babushkas Russian peasants used to make, so that, as one shell after another is removed, the effective power finally resides in the tiny babushka in the inmost...1948, Theodore Dryden, “Remarks on the Constitution of the Mongolian People's Republic”, in Dwight Macdonald, editor, politics, volume 5, number 3, New York: Politics Publishing Co., archived from...