"B" Word Origins

badinage

Origin

Borrowed from French badinage, from the verb badiner (“jest, joke”) from badin (“playful”), from Occitan badar (“gape”). Distantly related to abash.

badlands

French

A direct translation of a Canadian French phrase meaning "bad lands to cross," itself borrowed from a Lakota phrase describing land that was difficult to travel through.

badly

Middle English

From Middle English badly, formed from bad plus the adverb-forming suffix -ly.

badminton

Origin

Named after Badminton House, an English estate where the sport was first played in its modern form.

badmouth

Origin

Believed to be a loan translation of a West African expression for harmful gossip, which entered English through the Gullah language of the American South.

badness

Middle English

From Middle English baddenes, formed from bad plus the noun-forming suffix -ness.

BAE

Origin

Popular slang of disputed origin — often explained as a shortening of "babe" or "baby," and sometimes jokingly claimed to stand for "before anyone else."

Baek

Origin

Borrowed from Korean 백 (baek).

Baekje

Origin

From the Revised Romanization of Korean 백제(百濟) (Baekje).

baffle

Origin

The origin of the verb is uncertain; it is possibly: * from French bafouer, baffoüer (“to abuse, revile; to confuse, baffle; to deceive; to flout; to scorn”), imitative of someone making a disdainful sound by expelling air quickly through pouted lips (compare Occitan baf (interjection expressing disdain)); or * from French befer, beffer, beffler (“(obsolete) to deceive; to mock, ridicule”) (compare Old French befe, beffe, buffe (“deception; mockery”); beferie (“deceit; quibbling”)), possibly from bafouer: see above. The noun is derived from the verb. Cognates * Italian beffare (“(verb) to deride, mock”), beffa (“(noun) banter; mockery”) * Occitan bafar (“(verb) to deride, mock”), bafa (“(noun) banter; mockery”) * Old Spanish bafa (modern Spanish befa (“(noun) banter; mockery”)) * Spanish befar (“(verb) to deride, mock”)

bafflegab

Origin

From baffle + gab, coined 1952.

bafflement

Origin

From baffle + -ment.

bag

Middle English

From Middle English bagge, borrowed from an Old Norse word for a bag, pack, or bundle.

bagatelle

Origin

Borrowed from French bagatelle, from Italian bagattella.

bagel

German

Borrowed from Yiddish beygl, ultimately traced back to a Middle High German word meaning "ring" or "bracelet," which describes the bread's distinctive round shape.

bagful

Origin

From Middle English bage-ful, bage full, baggeful, bagg-ful; equivalent to bag + -ful.

baggage

Old French

From Old French bagage, related to bague ("bundle" or "sack"), and ultimately connected to the same root as the English word "bag."

bagger

Middle English

From Middle English bagger, formed from bag plus the agent suffix -er — literally "one who bags."

baggy

Origin

Formed from bag plus the adjective-forming suffix -y.

Baghdad

Arabic

Traced back through Arabic and Classical Persian, ultimately linked to an old Persian name meaning something like "gift of god" — the same root that also produced the name Bhagadatta in Sanskrit.

bagman

Origin

A compound of bag and man, originally describing someone who literally carried a bag of goods or money.

bagnio

Origin

From Italian bagno, from Latin balneum (“bath”). Doublet of bain, balaneion, and banya.

bagpipe

Origin

The locomotive sense comes from the resemblance of the subclass's dangling jumper cables to the pipes of a bagpipe.

bagpiper

Origin

From bagpipe + -er.

bagpipes

Origin

Compound of bag and pipe(s), describing the instrument's air reservoir and sounding pipes.

bags

Origin

From the verb bag in the sense "to make first claim on something," extended into a playground exclamation.

baguette

Latin

Borrowed from French baguette ("stick, rod"), from Italian bacchetta, ultimately from Latin baculum ("staff").

bah

French · 1800

First recorded in the early 1800s, likely borrowed from French bah.

bahadur

Persian

From Persian and Hindustani bahādur ("brave, valiant"); it shares an origin with the Slavic word bogatyr, meaning "hero".

Bahamas

Spanish

The origin is debated — most likely from Spanish baja mar ("shallow sea"), describing the islands' shallow surrounding waters, or possibly from a Taíno phrase meaning "big upper middle land".

bahar

Arabic

Borrowed from Arabic بُهَار (buhār), itself likely from an Egyptian Arabic dialect form.

Bahia

Portuguese

From Portuguese baía ("bay").

Bahrain

Arabic

From Arabic al-baḥrayn, literally "the two seas", referring to the fresh and salt water bodies that meet around the islands.

baht

Sanskrit

From Thai bàat, itself from a Pali word for a quarter-value coin, ultimately traced to a Sanskrit word meaning "quarter".

bai

Japanese · 1900

The dust-haze sense was borrowed from Japanese 霾 (bai), first appearing in English texts in the early twentieth century.

bail

Latin

From Old French bail ("custody, lease") and the verb bailler ("to hand over"), from Latin baiulare ("to carry or bear").

bailer

Origin

From bail + -er.

bailes

Origin

From Old French bailis, inflection of bailif (“bailiff, officer in a court of law”).

bailey

Latin

From Old French baile ("palisade, enclosure"), from Latin bacula, plural of baculum ("stick, rod").

bailiff

Latin

From Middle English baillif, via Anglo-Norman and Old French, ultimately from Latin baiulus ("porter, steward") — the same root as bail.

bailiwick

Origin

From bailie (“bailiff”) and wick (“dwelling”), from Old English wīc.

bailout

Origin

Formed from the phrasal verb bail out.

bain

Middle English

From Middle English bain/bayn, borrowed from Old Norse beinn, meaning "straight" or "favourable."

Bainbridge

Old English

From Bain, a river in North Yorkshire, + Old English brycġ ("bridge").

Baines

Norman

* Habitational, of Norman origin, after Bains (places in France in either Ille-et-Vilaine or Maine-et-Loire), from Old French baine (“bath”). * Variant of Bain or Bane with excrescent -s.

bairn

Old English

From Scots bairn, from Old English bearn ("child"), a doublet of barn (the storage building, from an unrelated sense of "storing grain").

bairnish

Origin

From Middle English *bernis, *barnisch, from Old English *bearnisċ and Old Norse bernskr (“childish”), from Proto-Germanic *barniskaz (“childish”), equivalent to bairn + -ish. Cognate with Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐍂𐌽𐌹𐍃𐌺𐍃 (barnisks, “childish”).

bait

Old Norse

From Old Norse beita ("food, bait"), related to the verb bite.