or babu, subs. (Anglo-Indian).—See quots. 1886 and 1888. Hence BABOO-ENGLISH = superfine; grandiloquent English such as is written by a BABOO; also BABOODOM and BABOOISM.
c. 1866. LYALL, Old Pindaree.
| But I’d sooner be robbed by a tall man who showed me a yard of steel, | |
| Than be fleeced by a sneaking BABOO with a peon and badge at his heel. |
c. 1879. ABERIGH-MACKAY, Twenty-one Days in India, 49. However much we may desire to diffuse BABOOISM over the Empire.
18[?]. Pall Mall Gazette (O.E.D.). BABOODOM is making ready for its great protest against education or any other cess.
1886. YULE and BURNETT, Hobson-Jobson, s.v. BABOO. In Bengal, and elsewhere, among Anglo-Indians, it is often used with a slight savour of disparagement as characterising a superficially cultivated, but too often effeminate Bengali; and from the extensive employment of the class to which the term was applied as a title in the capacity of clerks, in English offices the word has come often to signify a native clerk who writes English.
1886. T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 224. Text-books [Indian] are evidently English works crammed full of hard words such as are found in the metaphysical treatises. This accounts for the wonderful BABOO’S ENGLISH that is sometimes printed for our amusement.
1888. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. BABOO. Orig. A Hindoo title of respect, answering to our Mr. or Esquire; hence, a native Hindu gentleman: also (in Anglo-Indian use) a native clerk or official who writes English.
