Babbitt
(ˈbæbɪt)
Also erron. Babbit.
[f. the name of the (hero of the) novel by Sinclair Lewis, 1922.]
A type of materialistic, self-complacent business man conforming to the standards of his set. Also attrib. Hence ˈBabbittism, ˈBabbit(t)ry, the ‘Philistine’ behaviour associated with this type of person. Also ˈBabbitty a.
| 1923 Nation 18 Apr. 465/2 What is it I do find? A group of American business men!.. A swarm of forward-lookers! A circle of Babbitts! 1925 Spectator 19 Dec. 1146/2 In his controversy with M. Paul Bourget [he] reveals his almost incredible ‘Babbittism’. 1926 A. Huxley Jesting Pilate iv. 279 At all times the vast majority of human beings has consisted of Babbitts and peasants. 1928 Daily Express 27 Apr. 9/3 Vancouver has been inundated with the ‘Babbitry’ from the South. 1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Mar. 179/3 Engrossed in intellectual matters and contemptuous of the Babbittry around them. 1931 H. G. Wells Work, Wealth & Happiness of Mankind (1932) x. 453 It was an Individualist's heaven, Babbitt land. 1932 Scrutiny I. 3 In America there is the Hound and Horn, The Symposium, and the New Republic, all of which remind us that America is not inhabited solely by Babbitts. 1942 O. Nash Good Intentions 130 Every party Whether Babbitty or arty. 1957 Listener 14 Nov. 771/1 We Americans were known as the Babbits of the nineteen-twenties... The Russians are now the Babbits of the mid-century. 1966 Times 20 Sept. 11/2 This was not just a bit of Babbitry—‘the biggest little place in the state’—but official grading. |