BABYLONIAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Babylonian mean? 

• BABYLONIAN (noun)
  The noun BABYLONIAN has 2 senses:

1. an inhabitant of ancient Babylon

2. the ideographic and syllabic writing system in which the ancient Babylonian language was written

  Familiarity information: BABYLONIAN used as a noun is rare.

• BABYLONIAN (adjective)
  The adjective BABYLONIAN has 1 sense:

1. of or relating to the city of Babylon or its people or culture

  Familiarity information: BABYLONIAN used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BABYLONIAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An inhabitant of ancient Babylon

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("Babylonian" is a kind of...):

Semite (a member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Middle East and northern Africa)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Babylonian"):

Sumerian (a member of a people who inhabited ancient Sumer)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The ideographic and syllabic writing system in which the ancient Babylonian language was written

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("Babylonian" is a kind of...):

cuneiform (an ancient wedge-shaped script used in Mesopotamia and Persia)

Domain region:

Babylon (the chief city of ancient Mesopotamia and capital of the ancient kingdom of Babylonia)

• BABYLONIAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to the city of Babylon or its people or culture

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

Babylonian religion

Pertainym:

Babylon (the chief city of ancient Mesopotamia and capital of the ancient kingdom of Babylonia)

Derivation:

Babylon (the chief city of ancient Mesopotamia and capital of the ancient kingdom of Babylonia)

 Context examples 

Babylonian gods only survive because people feed them.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

This inexplicable incident, this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

An early example of fake news has been found in the 3000-year-old Babylonian story of Noah and the Ark, which is widely believed to have inspired the Biblical tale.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Dr Worthington is an Assyriologist who specialises in Babylonian, Assyrian and Sumerian grammar, literature and medicine.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Dr Martin Worthington’s new research analysing the word play in the story has uncovered the duplicitous language of a Babylonian god called Ea, who was motivated by self-interest.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Since Smith’s discovery many more clay tablets of the Babylonian flood story have come to light and academics are still analysing the meaning of stories in the ancient language that has not been spoken for 2000 years.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Dr Worthington, a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, said: “Ea tricks humanity by spreading fake news. He tells the Babylonian Noah, known as Uta–napishti, to promise his people that food will rain from the sky if they help him build the ark. What the people don’t realise is that Ea’s nine-line message is a trick: it is a sequence of sounds that can be understood in radically different ways, like English ‘ice cream’ and ‘I scream’.###!!!###

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Although there were more gods involved than in Genesis, and the Babylonian hero had a different name, the two stories were recognisably the same, with animals taken aboard the ark before the flood and birds sent out at the end once the rain stopped.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)