Babeldom
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of Babeldom. alt-of, alternative, countable, uncountable
"Written by and for a myopic, microscopical insomniac, it's a babeldom that puts all noveldom in the shade, that puts culture, with a sardonic laugh, in a cul-de-sac."
- 2 A confused mix of voices, languages, or words and ideas. countable, uncountable
"Only a German hobbledehoy was coarse with me, and cursed at my aping foreign Babeldoms, and thundered out in his beery bass, " At a Tscherman mummery must the Tschennan Tscherman speak.""
- 3 A state of noisy confusion and chaotic activity countable, uncountable
"HPSCHD is, literally, describable — six harpsichords, movie and still projections of lunar and terrestrial landscapes (courtesy of NASA), a vertiginous polyglot of quaquaversal dispersion, a Babeldom of visual and aural stimuli — but, like nearly all of Cage's work, its impact lies totally in the experiential effect of being there."
- 4 A multiplicity of mutually unintelligible languages. countable, uncountable
"In connection with both are night-schools for adults, which are also largely attended by Arabs, Copts, Jews, Levantines, and Europeans of almost every nationality: the waifs-and-strays of Babeldom who have no time for school-work by day, but who take industriously to it six evenings a week under the attractions here offered."
Example
More examples"Written by and for a myopic, microscopical insomniac, it's a babeldom that puts all noveldom in the shade, that puts culture, with a sardonic laugh, in a cul-de-sac."
Etymology
From a conflation of babble + -dom and Babel + -dom.
More for "babeldom"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.