ali baba

plural ali babas

1. Alternative letter-case form of Ali Baba.

1. The fictional protagonist of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, famous for his encounter with forty thieves and their treasure trove cave that opens on the command "open sesame".

plural Ali Babas

1. slangAn extremely lucky person, especially one who acquires a large fortune by luck or by chance.
2. USethnicslangslurgovernmentAn Iraqi.
3. attributiveA large container, such as a jar or a basket, with a flat base and usually a rounded body that tapers to a narrower neck.

   And don’t forget to put your dirty clothes in the Ali Baba.

   2003, Nigel Slater, “Duckling à l’orange”, in Toast, Fourth Estate, published 2010, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   Towering over all these are the huge Ali Baba baskets, square at the bottom, round at the top, and fitted with square covers that pull down like a Dutch smoker's cap.

   2009, Martha Reinhard Smallwood Field [Catherine Cole, pseud.], The Story of the Old French Market, ca. 1916, no pagination, quoted in Daniel H. Usner, Jr., Indian Work: Language and Livelihood in Native American History, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 101

   We found little piles in the oddest places - the oddest being within an Ali Baba jar some six feet high.

   2004 May 11, Sgt Len Scott RAPC, “My Billets in Algiers: A Pub, a Casino and a Bank”, in BBC, retrieved 16 Apr 2023

   Behind what looked like—but surely couldn't be—an oversized Ali Baba laundry basket dribbling earth and pebbles over the floor, peeped a save.

   2020, Marchell Abrahams, chapter 7, in Angels at Twenty Past, Troubador Publishing, →ISBN