babushka

plural babushkas · plural babushki · alternative babooshka · alternative baboushka

1. An Eastern European old woman.First known use 1830s

   There was a 92-year-old babushka who was injured, and we put her on the stretcher and helped get her out.

   2023 May 14, Marc Santora, “As Ukraine Makes Inroads in Bakhmut, Devastation Still Reigns”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 27 Aug 2023

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   Yet, much as I loved to listen to it, standing there in the heat of all the lighted candles and dressed in my heavy shuba and felt boots, I invariably, halfway through the service, would begin to feel an intolerable pain across my shoulders which would spread across my back, gradually getting worse, until in the end I was forced to go to the back of the church and find a corner on a bench especially placed there for all the old babushkas and dedushkas who were also unable to bear the strain of standing throughout the whole service.

   1984, Eugenie Fraser, “Before the Storm”, in The House by the Dvina: A Russian Childhood, Mainstream Publishing, →ISBN, pages 126–127

   As a boy, I hand-made pelmeni with my babushka Alla, my hands and face covered in flour as we worked in the cold of my grandparents’ basement in Paterson, New Jersey.

   2023 July 7, David Volodzko, “Dear Fremont: We need to talk about Lenin and your statue of the genocidal tyrant”, in The Seattle Times, archived from the original on 28 Apr 2025

   Synonyms: baba

   1. A Russian grandmother.

      I tell thee what, Babushka! I have no time to waste with thee in idle words.

      1834, Michael Zakosken, translated by “a Russian Lady of high rank and her two amiable daughters”, edited by Frederic Chamier, The Young Muscovite, or the Poles in Russia, volume I, London: Cochrane and M'crone, translation of Youry Dmitrich Miloslawsky (in Russian), page 203

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      The young coachman […] not knowing how to treat the old woman: whether with deference as it seemed to him proper, because the old woman wore the same kind of attire as his babushka and the mother of his house did […]

      1899, Lyof N. Tolstoï, “The Dekabrists: A Romance”, in [unknown], transl., Master and Man; The Kreutzer Sonata; Dramas (The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï), New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 231

      There they were, the devoted babushkas and dedushkas, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers of Bobby’s companions, lugging their bags, their bulging packages and bundles.

      1980, Mike Davidow, Moscow Diary, Moscow: Progress Publishers, page 147

      When Soviet bureaucrats wanted to impress foreign visitors with the success of the grand experiment, they would visit Potemkin villages—fake towns where actors pretended to be living a life of luxury amid bulging granaries and well-paved streets bustling with happy babushkas pushing prams.

      2007 August 14, Cory Doctorow, “Don't fall for the Potemkin scam”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 13 Aug 2022

      “He and my babushka took an angry and confused teenager and taught her how to build herself up into a strong woman.”

      2020, Nalini Singh, Alpha Night (Psy-Changeling Trinity), Berkley, →ISBN, page 205

      Synonyms: baba, baba, babulya

2. A traditional floral headscarf worn by an Eastern European woman, tied under the chin.First known use 1930s

   White Parian bust of smiling Russian peasant woman - with babushka covering head, lovely detail work, 21½″ tall

   1959 September 28, HOBBIES—The Magazine for Collectors, volume 64, number 7, Chicago: Lightner Publishing Corporation, page 80

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   “Say hello to old Stanley,” he called as she pattered down the steps into the street, flung a babushka over her license plate and screeched away down Telegraph.

   1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 79

   The crowd falls silent, momentarily stunned, while a heavyset woman in a babushka pushes her way through, broadcasting the news […].

   1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 78

3. A Russian doll, a matryoshka.First known use 1940s

   1 more example

   The present inhabitants of the Kremlin […] have rigged the Constitution in a series of articles which fit into each other like those wooden babushkas Russian peasants used to make, so that, as one shell after another is removed, the effective power finally resides in the tiny babushka in the inmost center.

   1948, Theodore Dryden, “Remarks on the Constitution of the Mongolian People's Republic”, in Dwight Macdonald, editor, politics, volume 5, number 3, New York: Politics Publishing Co., archived from the original on 29 Jun 2024, page 190