Word.ws English Dictionary

balbal

Syllables: bal·bal/ˈbɑːlbəl//ˈbɑlbəl/

balbal noun: in pre-Islamic Turkic cultures, an anthropomorphic stonen stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan (“type of prehistoric burial mound”); some are thought to symbolize enemies which a deceased warrior killed in their lifetime.

Noun

balbal (plural balbals)

  1. In pre-Islamic Turkic cultures, an anthropomorphic stonen stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan (“type of prehistoric burial mound”); some are thought to symbolize enemies which a deceased warrior killed in their lifetime.
    • [T]he Polovtsy or Cumans set up figures holding cups before them, and cases occur of "báby" being found upon barrows of the mediaeval nomads, e.g. at Torskaja Sloboda, district of Kupjansk, government of Kharkov[…]. Further in the Orkhon inscriptions very similar figures are designated as balbals...1913, Ellis H[ovell] Minns, “Scythic Tombs”, in Scythians and Greeks: A Survey of Ancient History and Archaeology on the North Coast of the Euxine from the Danube to the Caucasus, Cambridge...
    • Further beliefs of the early Turks can be deduced from their burial customs. It seems to have been the custom to erect some form of monument (balbal) over the grave of a hero on which enemies killed in battle were symbolically represented, probably in the belief that the spirit of these enemies...1958, Thomas G[ustav] Winner, “The Kazakh Culture Pattern”, in The Oral Art and Literature of the Kazakhs of Russian Central Asia, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, page 10
    Synonyms:
    kurgan stele

Examples of balbal in a sentence

  • Further in the Orkhon inscriptions very similar figures are designated as balbals, memorial statues.1913, Ellis H[ovell] Minns, “Scythic Tombs”, in Scythians and Greeks: A Survey of Ancient History and Archaeology on the North Coast of the...
  • Evidence of shamanism can be seen among the steppes and pastures, where stone figures, called balbals, are scattered.2006, David C. King, “Religion”, in Kyrgyzstan (Cultures of the World), Tarrytown, New York, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, →ISBN...
  • The balbal of Dayan Batyr probably dates from this time.2008, Christoph Baumer, “Art in Stone and Men of Stone”, in Colin Boone, transl., Traces in the Desert: Journeys of Discovery across...

Synonyms of balbal

  • kurgan stele

Forms of balbal

pluralbalbals

Origin of balbal

Learned borrowing from Old Turkic 𐰉𐰞𐰉𐰞 (b¹l¹b¹l¹ /⁠balbal⁠/), from a Mongolic language.

Questions about balbal

What does balbal mean?
Balbal means in pre-Islamic Turkic cultures, an anthropomorphic stonen stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan (“type of prehistoric burial mound”); some are thought to symbolize enemies which a deceased warrior killed in their lifetime.
How do you use balbal in a sentence?
Further in the Orkhon inscriptions very similar figures are designated as balbals, memorial statues.
What part of speech is balbal?
Balbal is a noun.
How do you pronounce balbal?
Balbal is pronounced /ˈbɑːlbəl/ (UK).
What is the plural of balbal?
The plural of balbal is balbals.

Words near balbal in the dictionary

  1. Balazeikin
  2. Balazs
  3. Balazses
  4. balbacua
  5. Balbagan
  6. balbal
  7. Balbalan
  8. Balbaldez
  9. balbals
  10. balbarid
  11. balbarids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: balbal (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-balbal.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-balbal.wav.

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