bab

plural babs

1. UKinformalA baby.

   Synonyms: baby

plural babs

1. East AngliafishingA 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.

   2006 February 1, John Meiklejohn, “Babbing for eels”, in BBC - WW2 People's War

   Synonyms: clod

present singular third person babs · participle present babbing · participle past babbed · past babbed

1. East AngliaintransitivefishingTo fish for eels using a bab.

   Sometimes we trolled or set liggers for pike, we seldom babbed for eels, it was such a slimy job.

   1948, William Guy, Mostly Memories: Some Digressions, C. J. Cousland, page 24

   2 more examples

   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.

   1884, George Christopher Davies, Norfolk Broads and Rivers, W. Blackwood and sons, page 244

   Another classic example was babbing for eels; he would come along and say — ‘Goodnight for babbing, make you some babs’.

   2006 February 1, John Meiklejohn, “Babbing for eels”, in BBC - WW2 People's War

1. alternativeAlternative form of the Báb.

1. Synonym of Set (“Egyptian god”).

   Synonyms: Set

1. abbreviationinitialismhuman sciencesInitialism 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.

   2024, James Weinberg, Governing in an Age of Distrust: A Comparative Study of Politicians' Trust Perceptions and Why They Matter, Oxford University Press, →ISBN

   1 more example

   Blame avoidance behavior (BAB) encompasses all kinds of integrity-protecting activities by officeholders in the face of potentially blame-attracting events. It is increasingly common for scholars to scrutinize political decisions and their effects in order to establish whether, and to what degree, they have been caused by officeholders’ motivation to avoid blame. By now, BAB is considered a widespread phenomenon that is essential for a realistic understanding of the nature and workings of political systems.

   2017 November 29, Markus Hinterleitner, Fritz Sager, “Anticipatory and reactive forms of blame avoidance: of foxes and lions”, in European Political Science Review, volume 9, number 4, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 587–606