baboon

• babian, babion

From Middle English babewin, baboin, from Old French babouin, from baboue (“grimace; muzzle”), of West Germanic origin, related to dialectal German Bäppe (“lips; muzzle”), Middle High German beffen (“to bark”), Middle English baffen (“to bark”). See also baff, baffle.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bəbo͞onʹ, IPA^(key): /bəˈbuːn/,^[1]
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌbæˈbuːn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

baboon (plural baboons)

1. An Old World monkey of the genus Papio, having dog-like muzzles and large canine teeth, cheek pouches, a short tail, and naked callosities on the buttocks. [from 13th c.]
   • 1971, Philip José Farmer, Down in the Black Gang: and others; a story collection, Nelson Doubleday, page 79:

     Mix swallowed the comment he wanted to make, that the council hall stank like a congress of baboons. But he was in no position to insult his host, nor should he. The man was only expressing the attitude of his time.

   • 2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist‎^[1], volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 21 June 2017, page 162:

     He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.

2. (colloquial, derogatory) A foolish, stupid or incompetent person.
   1. (highly derogatory, ethnic slur, offensive) A black person.
      • 2021 November, “Romaine Sawyers: Albion fan jailed for racist post loses appeal”, in BBC‎^[2]:

        The 50-year-old steel worker said he had meant to type Sawyers should win the "buffoon d'Or". He claimed a misspelling, of "bafoon", had autocorrected on his device to "baboon".

      • 2022 October, René Cornish, Kieran Tranter, “Dismissals for Social Media Hate Speech in South Africa: Animalistic Dehumanisation and the Circulation of Racist Words and Images”, in Springer Nature Link‎^[3]:

        Animalistic dehumanisation, 'simianisation' and the animalising of black bodies through metaphorically likening these individuals to 'baboons,' 'monkeys' or 'apes' reveals racialised animality discourse in South Africa.

The collective noun for baboons is troop.

• → Irish: babún
• → Welsh: babŵn

• chacma (Papio ursinus)
• drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus)
• mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx)
• Appendix:English collective nouns

• “baboon”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• baboon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Papio on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Papio on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons