Word.ws English Dictionary

obe

obe noun: a particular subdivision of ancient Laconia. Also the obsolete form of obeah.

Noun (1)

obe (plural obes)

  1. (historical) A particular subdivision of ancient Laconia.
    • It is probably that the τριακάδες represented ultimate division of the people, like the γένη of Attica; but it is difficult to see how such generic divisions could have born any relation to the local division of the obe.1890, Sir William Smith, William Wayte, George Eden Marindin, A dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities, volume 1, page 905

Proper noun capitalized: OBE

OBE

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Office of Bilingual Education.
  2. (US, abbreviation, historical, initialism) Initialism of Office of Business Economics, now BEA.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Oregon Board of Education.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Ottawa Board Of Education.

Noun (2) capitalized: OBE

OBE (countable and uncountable, plural OBEs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of operating-basis earthquake.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of out-of-body experience.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of outcome-based education.
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of one big explanation.
    • For this government, the OBE for our economic troubles was first Covid, then Ukraine.2022 November 27, William Keegan, “Brexit has made Britain the sick man of Europe again”, in The Guardian
  6. (abbreviation, humorous, initialism, powerkiting slang) Initialism of out-of-buggy experience.

Adjective capitalized: OBE

OBE (not comparable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of overcome / overtaken by events (i.e., now obsolete).

Also used as

obe is also the obsolete form of obeah.

Forms of obe

pluralobes
pluralOBEs

Plural of obe: obes

Questions about obe

What does obe mean?
Obe means a particular subdivision of ancient Laconia.
What part of speech is obe?
Obe can be a noun, a proper noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of obe?
The plural of obe is obes.

Words near obe in the dictionary

  1. obdure
  2. obdured
  3. obduredness
  4. obdures
  5. obduring
  6. obe
  7. obe ata
  8. obea
  9. obeah
  10. obeah doctor
  11. obeah doctors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: obe (page history and authors); OBE (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: “obe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/obe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.