Babylonian

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bæbɪˈləʊnɪ.ən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bæbɪˈloʊnɪ.ən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊniən

Babylonian (not comparable)

1. (historical) Pertaining to the city of Babylon, or the Babylonian Empire. [from 16th c.]
2. (obsolete, derogatory) Roman Catholic (with reference to e.g. Revelation 14–18). [16th–19th c.]
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford, published 2009, page 29:

     [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.

3. Characteristic of Babylon or its civilization and inhabitants; huge, decadent, indulgent. [from 17th c.].
   • 1926, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, “The Ghost of Gideon Wise” in The Incredulity of Father Brown:

     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,

• (pertaining to Babylon): Babylonic

Babylonian (plural Babylonians)

1. An inhabitant of the city of Babylon.
2. An inhabitant of Babylonia, which included Chaldea; a Chaldean.
3. An astrologer; so called because the Chaldeans were remarkable for the study of astrology.

Babylonian

1. A later form of the Akkadian language spoken in Babylonia from 1950 BCE to 100 CE.

• Assyro-Babylonian

• Ethnologue entry for Babylonian, tmr ⁠