"babel" meaning in English

See babel in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-babel.wav Forms: babels [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|-|s}} babel (usually uncountable, plural babels)
  1. Alternative form of Babel. Tags: alt-of, alternative, uncountable, usually Alternative form of: Babel
    Sense id: en-babel-en-noun-IQWI3L7P Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 70 30 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 80 20
  2. A confused noise made by a number of voices. Tags: uncountable, usually
    Sense id: en-babel-en-noun-hyl30esX Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 50 50

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "babels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-",
        "2": "s"
      },
      "expansion": "babel (usually uncountable, plural babels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "Babel"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "70 30",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "80 20",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of Babel."
      ],
      "id": "en-babel-en-noun-IQWI3L7P",
      "links": [
        [
          "Babel",
          "Babel#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative",
        "uncountable",
        "usually"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "50 50",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              40
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 11:",
          "text": "I closed the door hurriedly on the babel and groped my way back to bed. At that moment bed seemed to be the one safe, comforting thing in my whole baffling environment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              68,
              73
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1958 February 17, Arthur F. Beckenham, “A Journey in the Belgian Congo”, in Railway Magazine, page 93:",
          "text": "[…] up in front the third and fourth class passengers were making a babel of noise as they either detrained or entrained together with their large families and strange collection of parcels, bundles and earthenware jars.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A confused noise made by a number of voices."
      ],
      "id": "en-babel-en-noun-hyl30esX",
      "links": [
        [
          "noise",
          "noise"
        ],
        [
          "voice",
          "voice"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable",
        "usually"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-babel.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/46/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/46/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "babel"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "babels",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-",
        "2": "s"
      },
      "expansion": "babel (usually uncountable, plural babels)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "Babel"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alternative form of Babel."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Babel",
          "Babel#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "alt-of",
        "alternative",
        "uncountable",
        "usually"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              40
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 11:",
          "text": "I closed the door hurriedly on the babel and groped my way back to bed. At that moment bed seemed to be the one safe, comforting thing in my whole baffling environment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              68,
              73
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1958 February 17, Arthur F. Beckenham, “A Journey in the Belgian Congo”, in Railway Magazine, page 93:",
          "text": "[…] up in front the third and fourth class passengers were making a babel of noise as they either detrained or entrained together with their large families and strange collection of parcels, bundles and earthenware jars.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A confused noise made by a number of voices."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "noise",
          "noise"
        ],
        [
          "voice",
          "voice"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable",
        "usually"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-babel.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/46/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/46/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Sapaa-babel.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "babel"
}

Download raw JSONL data for babel meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (d1270d2 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.