Babelesque
adjective · first attested uncertain
Babel is not a mythical city: it is simply the Hebrew name for Babylon, whose ruins are south of Baghdad.
Marked by a confusion of languages, or by an inability to understand one another.
Record
- Relationship
- Indirect, via a person or title
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- uncertain
- Part of speech
- adjective
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Babylon
- In English
Babelesque
Genesis explains the name through a pun on the Hebrew balal, to confuse, but Babel renders the Akkadian Bab-ilim, gate of the god, the ordinary name of the city. The site lies near Hillah, about fifty miles south of Baghdad, and the tower of the story is usually connected with the ziggurat Etemenanki that stood there. The adjective transfers the confusion of tongues to anything polyglot or incomprehensible.