babbitt
see also: Babbitt
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈbabɪt/
  • (British, America) IPA: /ˈbæbɪt/
  • (weak vowel) IPA: /ˈbæbət/
Noun

babbitt

  1. A soft white alloy of variable composition (as a nine parts of tin to one of copper, or of fifty parts of tin to five of antimony and one of copper) used in bearings to diminish friction.
    Synonyms: Babbitt metal, Babbitt's metal, babbitt metal, bearing metal
Translations
  • German: Lagermetall
  • Russian: ба́ббит
Verb

babbitt (babbitts, present participle babbitting; past and past participle babbitted)

  1. (transitive) To line with this metal to reduce friction.
Noun

babbitt (plural babbitts)

  1. A person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals.
    • 1927 Ira Gershwin, "The Babbit and the Bromide," from the stage musical "Funny Face" (1927). Lyrics collected in: Louis Kronenberger (2008) An Anthology of Light Verse, p.234
      A Babbitt met a Bromide on the avenue one day. They held a conversation in their own peculiar way.
    • 1930 The Literary digest, Volume 105, Funk and Wagnalls, p.21
      One speaks of a babbitt habit, a babbitt era. Nothing is more true. America recognized itself in Babbitt, it demurred, but it also admired.
    • 1951 The Georgia review, Volume 5, University of Georgia, p.150
      If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a Babbitt. Say, there's nothing more wonderful than defying middle-class conventions.
    • 2002 Tamkang review, Volume 33, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, p.158
      […] a "babbitt" is a person full of self-confident bluster who is nevertheless a narrowminded philistine and a hypocrite.
    • 2003 William Hyland, George Gershwin: a new biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, p.116
      Ira relished telling the story that Fred Astaire took him aside and said he knew what a babbitt was, but what was a bromide?
    • 2009 Phillip G. Payne, Dead last: the public memory of Warren G. Harding's scandalous legacy, Ohio University Press, p.12
      In this sense Harding was a Babbitt. Intellectuals and journalists rejected Harding as being as empty as the Sinclair Lewis character.

Babbitt
Noun

babbitt (plural babbitts)

  1. Alternative form of babbitt



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