Babylonian meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

Babylonian

adj

UK /bæbɪˈləʊnɪ.ən/ · US /bæbɪˈloʊnɪ.ən/

Etymology From Latin Babylōnius (“of Babylon, Babylonian”) (from Ancient Greek Βαβυλώνιος (Babulṓnios)) + -an. By surface analysis, Babylon + -ian. Piecewise doublet of Babelian.

Historical Pertaining to the city of Babylon, or the Babylonian Empire.

Derogatory, Obsolete Roman Catholic (with reference to e.g. Revelation 14–18).

[W]e, on our parts, have learned to speak only the primitive language of the law, and not the confused jargon of their Babylonian pulpits.1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford, published 2009, page 29:

Figuratively Characteristic of Babylon or its civilization and inhabitants; huge, decadent, indulgent. .

The first was in the Babylonian halls of the big hotel, which was the meeting place of the three commercial magnates concerned with arranging for a coal lock-out and denouncing it as a coal strike,1926, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “The Ghost of Gideon Wise”, in The Incredulity of Father Brown:

Derived terms: Babylonian Talmud, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Middle Babylonian, Neo-Babylonian

Babylonian

noun

Etymology From Latin Babylōnius (“of Babylon, Babylonian”) (from Ancient Greek Βαβυλώνιος (Babulṓnios)) + -an. By surface analysis, Babylon + -ian. Piecewise doublet of Babelian.

An inhabitant of the city of Babylon.

An inhabitant of Babylonia, which included Chaldea; a Chaldean.

An astrologer; so called because the Chaldeans were remarkable for the study of astrology.