babel
1
8.7
- noun
- /ˈbeɪbəl/
:
babel
- People on Mars, needing to communicate despite a babel of tongues, were developing a jargon all their own; the American members of the colony called it All.
- babel of voices
- babel of tongues
Examples
-
Despite the current arts education babel, there are substantive documents that address these five hard questions.
Academic text (1996) -
Tall ships swam in our harbor surrounded by a babel.
Fiction book (1994) -
One reason is that Goals 2000 is just one voice in the babel of U.S. arts education.
Academic text (1996) -
Buildings, he wrote, were simply three-story structures, but the people who lived in and around them spoke a complicated babel of languages.
Academic text (1996) -
The cell blocks, the?babel lock? the box, the mess... everything is in large vertical compartments
-
His remarks about the project's history seem to mask a challenge to make something coherent out of a babel of poorly coordinated individual efforts.
Academic text (1998) -
No milling throngs, no caterwauling babel of countless aliens.
Fiction book (1999) -
While the shelling and suffering are watched by millions on television, the impotent United Nations does nothing but engage in mindless babel.
Blog text (17) -
To presume such consequences in the present babel would condemn standards to death by trivialization and misdirection—a common fate of proposals to reform U.S. arts education.
Academic text (1996) -
As the festival started, a cheerful babel of laughter and music filled the streets.
Synonyms
45
7.2
Speech or writing that does not make sense
19
4.4
Soft, happy sounds a baby makes before speaking clearly
A noisy place where people speak many languages and feel confused
Antonyms
Compounds
- Literature
1
7.7
A tall tower in the Bible where God causes people to speak different languages
How Chaotic
Surface Forms
Etymology
The word babel comes from the Bible story of the Tower of Babel, where people suddenly spoke 'many languages' and could no longer understand each other. A helpful way to remember it is to link babel to the everyday word babble, which means 'noisy, unclear talk', and that's why a babel is a noisy, confusing mix of voices.