| 释义 |
‖ babu|ˈbɑːbuː|
Also 8–9 baboo.
[Hindi bābū.]
a. orig. A Hindu title of respect, answering to our Mr. or Esquire; hence, a Hindu gentleman; also (in Anglo-Indian use), a native clerk or official who writes English; sometimes applied disparagingly to a Hindu or, more particularly, a Bengali, with a superficial English education.
1782India Gaz. 12 Oct. (Subscription-list), Cantoo Baboo..200 Sicca Rupees. 1823Heber Indian Jrnl. 11 Oct., Some of the more wealthy baboos (the name of the native Hindoo gentleman answering to our esquire). 1854Stocqueler Brit. India 120 The sircar, baboo, purvoe, or whatever he may be called, is the chancellor of the exchequer, and it is not unseldom..that his master is his debtor. c1866A. Lyall Old Pindaree I'd sooner be robbed by a tall man..Than be fleeced by a sneaking Baboo. 1931Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Mar. 174/3 Robin's babu clerk. 1934H. G. Wells Experiment in Autobiog. I. vi. 309 The prose was over-elaborate and with that same flavour of the Babu, to which I have called attention.
b. babu English, the ornate and somewhat unidiomatic English of an Indian who has learnt the language principally from books. So by extension, babu, attrib., excessively ornate.
1878Geo. Eliot Let. 27 June (1956) VII. 33 Something more amusing—a bit of Baboo English from an Indian journal. 1889Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang I. 58/2 Baboo-English..applied to the peculiar English which is rather written than spoken by the natives in India. 1890Farmer Slang I. 86/1 Baboo-English... Its main peculiarity is its grandiloquence, a feature born of an attempt to adapt Western speech to Eastern imagery and hyperbole. 1925Weekly Westminster 4 July 258 They irritate by their rather Babu familiarity with West End place-names. 1926A. Mayhew Education of India xii. 153 The [Indian] matriculate's mastery of English, despite all the ridicule unjustly bestowed on Babu English, is far more complete and practical than that shown by the normally intelligent and industrious English boy at the same stage. 1934R. C. Goffin S.P.E. Tract XLI. 23 The perpetrations universally recognized as ‘babu English’ with its preposterously learned pretensions. 1936C. S. Lewis Allegory of Love ii. 81 The fantastical ‘babu’ ornaments of the style [of the De Nuptiis] were admired.
Hence babudom, -ism.
18..Pall Mall Gaz. 18 July 11 Baboodom is making ready for its great protest against education or any other cess. c1879G. Aberigh-Mackay 21 Days in India 49 However much we may desire to diffuse Babooism over the Empire. 1907Westm. Gaz. 18 Dec. 1/3 The partition of Bengal supplied the simmering discontent of Babudom with a definite grievance. |