Babbitt

See also: babbitt

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbæbɪt/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈbæbət/
• Rhymes: -æbɪt
• Hyphenation: Bab‧bitt

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Proper noun

Babbitt (plural Babbitts)

1. A surname.

Etymology 2

From the surname of George Babbitt, the title character of the novel Babbitt (1922) by the American author Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951).^[1] The word was also popularized by the George (1898–1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) song “The Babbitt and the Bromide”, first featured in the 1927 musical Funny Face and later in the film Ziegfeld Follies (1945).

Noun

Babbitt (plural Babbitts)

1. (US, dated) A person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals.
   • 1927 Ira Gershwin, "The Babbit and the Bromide," from the stage musical "Funny Face" (1927). Lyrics collected in: Louis Kronenberger (2008) An Anthology of Light Verse, p.234

     A Babbitt met a Bromide on the avenue one day. They held a conversation in their own peculiar way.

   • 1930, The Literary digest, volume 105, Funk and Wagnalls, page 21:

     One speaks of a babbitt habit, a babbitt era. Nothing is more true. America recognized itself in Babbitt, it demurred, but it also admired.

   • 1931, James Truslow Adams, The Epic Of America, Boston: Little, Brown, And Company, page 411:

     The top and bottom are spiritually and intellectually nearer together in America than in most countries, but there are plenty of Babbitts everywhere.

   • 1951, The Georgia review, volume 5, University of Georgia, page 150:

     If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a Babbitt. Say, there's nothing more wonderful than defying middle-class conventions.

   • 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 288:

     I myself think that Doc overdid the Yankee Doodle stuff. Being a Babbitt inspired him almost the way Swinburne did me. He was dying to say goodbye to Jewry, or to feudalism.

   • [2002 Tamkang review, Volume 33, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, p.158

     [...] a "babbitt" is a person full of self-confident bluster who is nevertheless a narrowminded philistine and a hypocrite.]

   • 2003, William Hyland, George Gershwin: a new biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, page 116:

     Ira relished telling the story that Fred Astaire took him aside and said he knew what a babbitt was, but what was a bromide?

   • 2009, Phillip G. Payne, Dead last: the public memory of Warren G. Harding's scandalous legacy,, Ohio University Press, page 12:

     In this sense Harding was a Babbitt. Intellectuals and journalists rejected Harding as being as empty as the Sinclair Lewis character.

Alternative forms

• Babbit (nonstandard)
• babbitt

Derived terms

• Babbittian
• Babbittism
• Babbittry, babbittry
• Babbitty

Translations

person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals

Polish: drobnomieszczanin (pl) m, drobnomieszczanka (pl) f, filister (pl) m

Etymology 3

See babbitt.

Noun

Babbitt (countable and uncountable, plural Babbitts)

1. (dated) Alternative letter-case form of babbitt (“a soft white alloy of variable composition (for example, nine parts of tin to one of copper, or fifty parts of tin to five of antimony and one of copper) used in bearings to diminish friction”)
   • 1867 October 29, John Underwood, Improved Babbitting and Drilling Jig, US Patent 0070294 (PDF version), page 1:

     Figure 2 represents a top plan of the "Babbitting" jig, placed in or upon a cast-iron frame, preparatory to the pouring or casting of the "Babbitt" or other soft metal on to or around its journals, to form journal bearings in said cast-iron frame.

   • 1895 June, “The Fisher Self-oiling Engine”, in Power, volume XV, number 6, New York, N.Y., Chicago, Ill.: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10, column 2:

     The cross-head is cast of crucible steel and faced with Babbitt. […] The rod is secured to the crank pin by body bound bolts, this bearing being provided with Babbitt shells which are prevented from turning by paper liners extending to the pin.

   • 2020, Robert C. Juvinall, Kurt M. Marshek, “Lubrication and Sliding Bearings”, in Jennifer Brady, editor, Fundamentals of Machine Component Design, 7th edition, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, →ISBN, page 403:

     The most common bearing materials are Babbitts, both tin-base (as 89% Sn, 8% Pb, 3% Cu) and lead-base (as 75% Pb, 15% Sb, 10% Sn), and copper alloys, primarily copper lead, leaded bronze, tin bronze, and aluminium bronze. […] The Babbitts are unexcelled in conformability and embeddability, but they have relatively low compressive and fatigue strength, particularly above about 77°C (170°F). Babbitts can seldom be used above about 121°C (250°F).

References

1. “Babbitt, n.²”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2011; “Babbitt, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

• Babbitt (novel) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia