bah

See also: Appendix:Variations of "bah"

Translingual

Symbol

bah

1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Bahamian Creole.

See also

• Wiktionary's coverage of Bahamian Creole terms

English

Etymology 1

Early 19th century, probably borrowed from French bah.

Alternative forms

• baugh (archaic)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bæ/, /bɑː/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æ, -ɑː
• Homophones: baa, bar (in some pronunciations)

Interjection

bah

1. (sometimes humorous) Expressing contempt, disgust, or bad temper.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 301:

     "To the doctor's? Bah!" said the sorceress, and spat upon the floor.

   • 1992, April Kihlstrom, Dangerous Masquerade:

     Templeton looked over the assembled servants speculatively, then shrugged. "Bah!" he said. "They're of no use to me. Come, Andrew, a word with you upstairs."

Synonyms

• (expressing contempt): pht, feh, meh, pooh, pshaw, poh, pish; see also Thesaurus:bah
• (expressing disgust): bleh, ick, ych a fi; see also Thesaurus:yuck

Derived terms

• bah humbug
• pooh-bah, poobah

Translations

expressing contempt

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: (strong, offensive) 呸 (zh) (pēi)

• Esperanto: ba (eo)
• Finnish: pah, pöh (fi), pyh (fi)
• Galician: boh (gl)
• Greek: μπα (el) (ba)
• Ido: ba (io)
• Maori: atā, aeha
• Portuguese: bah (pt), chispa (pt), ora bolas, goff
• Russian: тьфу (ru) (tʹfu), фу (ru) (fu)
• Spanish: bah (es)

Etymology 2

Alternative forms

• baa

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɑː/
• Rhymes: -ɑː
• Homophones: baa, bar (in some pronunciations)

Noun

bah (plural bahs)

1. Alternative spelling of baa (the cry of a sheep or goat).
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     `There, cut his throat quick. Where is the saucer?' `The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! I must have it, don't you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me the blood of the goat.' At this moment a terrified bah! announced that the poor goat had been sacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full of blood.

Etymology 3

From Mandarin 吧 (ba).

Pronunciation

• (Singapore) IPA^(key): [pɑ˨], [b̥-]

Particle

bah

1. (Manglish, Singlish, rare) Used for emphasis; softens a suggestion.

   I think you should go see a doctor ba.

2. (Manglish, Singlish, rare) Indicates confident speculation.

See also

• sis boom bah
• (Singlish particles): ah, hor, lah, leh, liao, lor, mah, meh, one, sia, what

Anagrams

• ABH, AHB, BHA, HAB, HBA, Hab, Hab., hab

Dutch

Etymology

Exclamatory

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɑ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bah

Interjection

bah

1. An exclamation of disapproval, contempt or disgust: bah, yuck

French

Etymology

Not well-attested in texts, but of imitative origin nevertheless, similar to bayer (“to gape”). Sense 2 is a denasalized version of "ben".

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba/

• Audio:

  (file)

Interjection

bah

1. No.

   Bah, bah, bah !

   No, no, no!

2. An exclamation to fill space, often used as an intensifier; well, err, um

   Synonym: ben

   Tu veux jouer aussi ? ― Bah, ouais.

   Do you want to play too? ― Well, yeah.

Further reading

• “bah”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• hab

German

Alternative forms

• bäh

Etymology

Exclamatory

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba(h)/, /baː/, /ba.aː/

• Audio:

  (file)

Interjection

bah

1. an exclamation of disgust: yuck, etc.

   Synonyms: igitt, iiih, pfui, üäh

Hokkien

For pronunciation and definitions of bah – see 肉 (“meat; flesh”). (This term is the pe̍h-ōe-jī form of 肉).

Iban

Etymology

From Proto-Malayic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bahaq, from Proto-Austronesian *baSaq.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bəah/

Noun

bah

1. flood (overflow of water)

Indonesian

Pronunciation

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈbah/ [ˈbah]
• Rhymes: -ah
• Syllabification: bah

Etymology 1

Inherited from Malay bah, from Proto-Malayic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bahaq, from Proto-Austronesian *baSaq.

Noun

bah (uncountable)

1. (dialectal) Synonym of banjir (“flood”)

Derived terms

• bah betina
• bah jantan

 

Etymology 2

From Dutch bah.

Interjection

bah

1. Synonym of idih

Etymology 3

Perhaps from Malay bah.

Interjection

bah

1. (dialectal) an exclamation of intimacy

Further reading

• “bah” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Italian

Etymology

Exclamatory

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈba/, which may be followed by [h] or [ʔ] or trigger syntactic gemination.
• Rhymes: -a
• Hyphenation: bah

Interjection

bah

1. indicates astonishment, resignation and despise; usually used after noticing or hearing something you don't like or you don't know what to think about, to avoid commenting or giving an answer to a question

See also

• mah

Further reading

• bah in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Malay

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bah/
• Rhymes: -ah

Etymology 1

From Proto-Malayic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *bahaq, from Proto-Austronesian *baSaq.

Noun

bah (Jawi spelling به, plural bah-bah)

1. flood (overflow of water)

   Synonym: banjir

Descendants

• Indonesian: bah

Etymology 2

Noun

bah (Jawi spelling به)

1. Short for abah.

Etymology 3

Noun

bah (Jawi spelling به)

1. Short for babah.

Etymology 4

Noun

bah (Jawi spelling به)

1. Abbreviation of bahasa.

Etymology 5

Preposition

bah (Jawi spelling به)

1. Alternative form of bawah

Portuguese

Interjection

bah!

1. (Rio Grande do Sul) Alternative form of bá

Simalungun Batak

Noun

bah

1. water
2. river

References

• Zufri Hidayat et al. (2015). Kamus Bahasa Simalungun–Indonesia (2nd ed.). Medan: Balai Bahasa Provinsi Sumatera Utara, p. 18.

Spanish

Etymology

Possibly from Latin vāh.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈba/ [ˈba]
• Rhymes: -a

Interjection

bah

1. indicates disdain or unbelief

See also

• qué va

Further reading

• “bah”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10

Zou

Verb

bah

1. bet

References

• http://www.languageinindia.com/feb2013/zouphonologyfinal.pdf

---

Zyphe

Verb

bah

1. to owe

References

• Samson Alexander Lotven (2021) The Sound Systems of Zophei Dialects and Other Maraic Languages (Dissertation)‎^[1]