Chapter Baal to Badger of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Baal to Badger

Baal, plu. Baalim, a general name for al l the Syrian gods, as Ashtaroth was for the goddesses. The general version of the legend of Baal is the same as that of Adonis, Thammuz, Osiris, and the Arabian myth of El Khouder. All allegorize the sun, six months above and six months below the equator. As a title of honour, the word Baal, Bal, Bel, etc., enters into a large number of Phœnician and Carthaginian proper names, as Hanni bal, Hasdru-bal, Bel-shazzar, etc.

… [the] general names
Of Baälim and Ashtaroth: those male;
These female.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, i. 422(1665).

Baalbec of Ireland, Kilmallock in Limerick, noted for its ruins.

Bab (Lady), a waiting-maid on a lady so called, who assumes the airs with the name and address of her mistress. Her fellow-servants and other servants address her as “lady Bab,” or “Your ladyship.” She is a fine wench, “but by no means particular in keeping her teeth clean.” She says she never reads but one “book, which is Shikspur.” And she calls Lovel and Freeman, two gentlemen of fortune, “downright hottenpots.”—Rev. F. Townley: High Life Below Stairs (1763).

Baba, chief of the eunuchs in the court of the sultana Gulbeyaz.—Byron: Don Juan, v.28 etc. (1820).

Baba (Ali), who relates the story of the “Forty Thieves” in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. He discovered the thieves’ cav e while hiding in a tree, and heard the magic word, “Sesamê,” at which the door of the cave opened and shut.

Cassim Baba, brother of Ali Baba, who entered the cave of the forty thieves, but forgot the pass-word, and stood crying, “Open, Wheat!” “Open, Barley!” to the door, which obeyed no sound but “Open, Sesamê!”

Baba Mustapha, a cobbler who sewed together the four pieces into which Cassim’s body had been cleft by the forty thieves. When the thieves discovered that the body had been taken away, they sent one of the band into the city, to ascertain who had died of late. The man happened to enter the cobbler’s stall, and falling into a gossip, heard about the body which the cobbler had sewed together. Mustapha pointed out to him the house of Cassim Baba’s widow, and the thief marked it with a piece of white chalk. Next day the cobbler pointed out the house to another, who marked it with red chalk. And the day following he pointed it out to the captain of the band, who, instead of marking the door, studied the house till he felt sure of recognizing it.—Arabian Nights (“Ali Baba, or The Forty Thieves”).

Bababalouk, chief of the black eunuchs, whose duty it was to wait on the sultan, to guard the sultanas, and to superintend the harem.—Habesci: State of the Ottoman Empire, 155, 156.

Babel [“confusion”] There is a town in Abyssinia called Habesh, the Arabic word for “confusion.” This town is so called from the great diversity of races by which it is inhabited: Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, Ethiopians, Arabians, Falashas (exiles), Gallas, and Negroes, all consort together there.

Babes in the Wood, insurrectionary hordes which infested the mountains of Wicklow and the woods of Enniscarthy towards the close of the eighteenth century. (See Children In The Wood.)

Babie, old Alice Gray’s servant-girl.—Sir W. Scott: Bride of Lammermoor (time, William III.).

Babieca (3 syl, the Cid’s horse.

I learnt to prize Babieca from his head unto his hoof. The Cid (1128).

Baboon (Philip), Philippe Bourbon, duc d’Anjou.

Lewis Baboon, Louis XIV., “a false loon of a grandfather to Philip duke of Anjou, and one that might justly be called a Jack-of-all-trades.”