bab

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A baby.

2. 2

   A bait for eels, consisting of a bundle of live worms.

   • The worms were threaded onto the yarn until we had 4 or 5 feet of big juicy worms threaded through. We would coil it all up and put an old rusty nut at the centre and tie it on a bit of string on an old ash pole — this was the bab.
3. 3

   To fish for eels using a bab.

   • The babbers follow the eels, and you may see fifteen boats as close together as possible, babbing away, and catching as much as four stone-weight of eels per boat of a night.
   • Sometimes we trolled or set liggers for pike, we seldom babbed for eels, it was such a slimy job.
   • Another classic example was babbing for eels; he would come along and say — ‘Goodnight for babbing, make you some babs’.
4. ›+ 3 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Alternative form of the Báb.

   2. 5

      Synonym of Set (“Egyptian god”).

   3. 6

      Initialism of blame avoidance behavior

      • In other words, politicians who feel distrusted may upweight the risks attached to policy failure, whilst politicians who feel mistrusted may upweight the risks attached to being ‘caught out’ in their BAB.

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