Of Baälim and Ashtaroth: those male;
These female.
Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 422 (1665).
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. J. Townley, High Life Below Stairs (1763).
Ba´ba, chief of the eunuchs in the court of the sultana Gulbey´az.—Byron, Don Juan, v. 82, etc. (1820).
Baba (Ali), who relates the story of the "Forty Thieves" in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. He discovered the thieves' cave while hiding in a tree, and heard the magic word "Ses´amê," 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 to no sound but "Open Sesamê!"
Baba Mus´tapha, 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, 155-6.
Babes in the Wood, insurrectionary hordes that infested the mountains of Wicklow and the woods of Enniscarthy towards the close of the eighteenth century. (See CHILDREN IN THE WOOD.)