Babu
बाबू
BAH-boo
Babu (बाबू) is a Bengali-origin word used in Indian English, meaning indian English term for a clerk or low-level bureaucrat — sometimes mildly pejorative. In crosswords it is the 4-letter answer BABU (4).
Meaning & usage
Babu is originally a respectful Bengali term of address — roughly "sir" or "mister", and a tender form of address for fathers and elders. Under the British Raj it shifted into colonial English with a sneer, meaning a low-level Indian clerk in the colonial bureaucracy ("babu English" was a stereotyped style of overformal Indianised prose). In modern Indian English it still names the broad bureaucratic class, often critically — as in "babudom".
In a sentence
Five different babus had to stamp the form before it cleared.
Common spelling variants
- Baboo
- Babuji
Babu is the English spelling used in MG Mini puzzles.
Babu as a crossword answer
Babu is a 4-letter answer. A typical clue:
“Indian English term for a clerk or low-level bureaucrat — sometimes mildly pejorative” (4)
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