baboon
/ˌbæˈbuːn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.73 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An Old World monkey of the genus Papio, having dog-like muzzles and large canine teeth, cheek pouches, a short tail, and naked callosities on the buttocks.
Example Sentences
- "Mix swallowed the comment he wanted to make, that the council hall stank like a congress of baboons. But he was in no position to insult his host, nor should he. The man was only expressing the attitude of his time."
- "He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record."
- "The 50-year-old steel worker said he had meant to type Sawyers should win the "buffoon d'Or". He claimed a misspelling, of "bafoon", had autocorrected on his device to "baboon"."
- "Animalistic dehumanisation, 'simianisation' and the animalising of black bodies through metaphorically likening these individuals to 'baboons,' 'monkeys' or 'apes' reveals racialised animality discourse in South Africa."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English babewin, baboin, from Old French babouin, from baboue (“grimace; muzzle”) (whence French babouin), from an imitative origin. According to Oxford English Dictionary, it was an imitative base *bab-, which is in turn from the (reduplicated) syllable ba, characteristic of early infantile vocalization (and expressive of the movement of the lips in speech). French babouin was also borrowed into other European languages. Confer Vulgar Latin babouinus ("a grimace"), Vulgar Latin babuinare ("to paint marginal figures in manuscripts"), Italian babbuino, babuino (“baboon”), Dutch baviaan (“baboon”), German Pavian (“baboon”) For the sense of infant imitation, see English babble (“to blather”), English babe (“darling”), English baby (“infant”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: babewin, babouin, babouinus, babuinare
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌbæˈbuːn/
- British English: /bəˈbuːn/