balebos
/bɑːləˈbʌs/
balebos noun: master of the house, head of the household, host.
Noun
balebos (plural balebatim)
- Master of the house, head of the household, host.
- House owner, homeowner.
- Boss, person in charge (of anything).
- Important man, bourgeoisie.
- An annual custom that lasted for many years involved a celebration of the eight days of Chanukah for all of the balebatim. Every evening was hosted by a different balebos and there was a lavish feast.2008, Joseph Margoshes, “Reb Vovtshi's Kloyz”, in A World Apart: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century Galicia, →ISBN, page 51
- Layman, congregant, non-clergy.
- The rabbi, whom I met and then overheard at a kiddush after shul, was going over his sermon with some of the balebatim, […].1996, Jonathan Boyarin, “My Trip to Israel, Continued”, in Palestine and Jewish History: Criticism at the Borders of Ethnography, →ISBN, page 153
Forms of balebos
| plural | balebatim |
|---|---|
| alternative form | baal-ha-bos |
| alternative form | balabos |
| alternative form | balaboss |
| alternative form | baleboss |
Origin of balebos
Borrowed from Yiddish בעל־הבית (balebos), from Hebrew בַּעַל הַבַּיִת (bá'al habáyit, “master of the house”).
Questions about balebos
- What does balebos mean?
- Balebos means master of the house, head of the household, host.
- What part of speech is balebos?
- Balebos is a noun.
- How do you pronounce balebos?
- Balebos is pronounced /bɑːləˈbʌs/.
- What is the plural of balebos?
- The plural of balebos is balebatim.
Words near balebos in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: balebos (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-balebos.wav.
Cite this entry: “balebos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/balebos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.