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Babel
(redirected from Babels)

    Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
Ba·bel  (bbl, bbl)
In the Bible, a city (now thought to be Babylon) in Shinar where God confounded a presumptuous attempt to build a tower into heaven by confusing the language of its builders into many mutually incomprehensible languages.
ba·bel also Ba·bel  (bbl, bbl)
n.
1. A confusion of sounds or voices. See Synonyms at noise.
2. A scene of noise and confusion.
[After Babel.]
babel [babe-el]
Noun
1. a confusion of noises or voices
2. a scene of noise and confusion [from the confusion of languages on the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–10)]
Babel a confused mixture of sounds, voices, or languages; a confused assembly. See also charivari, hubbub, pandemonium.
Examples: babel of follies, 1529; of past idle objurgations, 1884; of sectaries, 1731; babel towers of chimney, 1848.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.BabelBabel - (Genesis 11:1-11) a tower built by Noah's descendants (probably in Babylon) who intended it to reach up to heaven; God foiled them by confusing their language so they could no longer understand one another
Tower of Babel
Book of Genesis, Genesis - the first book of the Old Testament: tells of Creation; Adam and Eve; the Fall of Man; Cain and Abel; Noah and the flood; God's covenant with Abraham; Abraham and Isaac; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and his brothers
Babylon - the chief city of ancient Mesopotamia and capital of the ancient kingdom of Babylonia
2.babel - a confusion of voices and other sounds
confusion - an act causing a disorderly combination of elements with identities lost and distinctions blended; "the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel"
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Eventually, perfection is reached and the rising and falling cease: "For there, between the two towers, the moon shines, clear and perfect, and the towers are no longer Babels ever rising and falling, but complete in their degree" (GT 195).
Hermeticism and the metaphysics of goodness in the Novels of Charles ... by McLaren, Scott / Mythlore
This is Smithson the writer and reader, the same Smithson who famously wrote of "the illusory babels of language" and the intoxications of "dizzying syntaxes"; the Smithson who, in his drawing A Heap of Language, 1966, tirelessly piled word on word, synonym atop synonym, like Pelion upon Ossa ("Language / phraseology speech / tongue lingo vernacular .
Robert Smithson: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles by Wagner, Anne M. / Artforum International
Quoting from the essay, Will argues that Wister "glorifies the triumph of the racially pure, 'untamed Saxon' cowboy" over the "'encroaching alien vermin, that turn our cities to Babels and our citizenship to a hybrid farce'" (Will 309).
"Try to refrain from that desire": self-control and violent passion ... by Johnson, Michael K. / African American Review
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