Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel proper noun: a tower erected at Babel by the descendants of Noah's son Ham to reach the sky, and whose completion God thwarted by making the workers speak different languages so that they were unable to understand one another. Also the alternative letter-case form of tower of Babel.

Image: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proper noun

the Tower of Babel

A tower erected at Babel by the descendants of Noah's son Ham to reach the sky, and whose completion God thwarted by making the workers speak different languages so that they were unable to understand one another.

Noun (1)

Tower of Babel (plural Towers of Babel)

(figuratively) A visionary and impractical plan.

Noun (2) capitalized: tower of Babel

tower of Babel (plural towers of Babel)

(figuratively) A situation where the use of many different languages is a source of confusion.

Also used as

Tower of Babel is also the alternative letter-case form of tower of Babel.

Tower of Babel meaning in Urdu, Tagalog, Arabic and Persian

Tower of Babel in Urdu

tower erected at Babel: بابل کا برج bābil kā burj

Tower of Babel in Tagalog

tower erected at Babel: Tore ng Babel

Tower of Babel in Arabic

tower erected at Babel: بُرْج بَابِل burj bābil

Tower of Babel in Persian

tower erected at Babel: برج بابل borj-e bâbel

More languagesFewer languages

Tower of Babel in Thai: หอคอยบาเบล hɔ̌ɔ-kɔɔi baa-been

Forms of Tower of Babel

plural	Towers of Babel
plural	towers of Babel
alternative form	Tower of Babel

Origin of Tower of Babel

From the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

Questions about Tower of Babel

What does Tower of Babel mean?: Tower of Babel means a tower erected at Babel by the descendants of Noah's son Ham to reach the sky, and whose completion God thwarted by making the workers speak different languages so that they were unable to understand one another.
What is Tower of Babel in Urdu?: Tower of Babel in Urdu is بابل کا برج (bābil kā burj). See Tower of Babel meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is Tower of Babel?: Tower of Babel can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Tower of Babel in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tower of Babel (page history and authors); tower of Babel (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Tower of Babel.wav.

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