different between materialistic vs babbitt

English

Etymology

material +? -istic

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m??t???.i.??l?s.t?k/

Adjective

materialistic (comparative more materialistic, superlative most materialistic)

1. Being overly concerned with material possessions and wealth.
2. Of or concerning philosophical materialism.
   • 1852, Charles Kingsley, Phaeton, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers

     But to me his very spiritualism seemed more materialistic than his physics.

Related terms

• materialism

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?bæb?t/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /?bæb?t/
• Rhymes: -æb?t
• Hyphenation: bab?bitt

Etymology 1

The noun is derived from Babbitt, the surname of the American inventor Isaac Babbitt (1799–1862) who invented the alloy.

The verb is derived from the noun.

Noun

babbitt (countable and uncountable, plural babbitts)

1. Short for babbitt metal, Babbitt metal (“a soft white alloy of variable composition (for example, nine parts of tin to one of copper, or fifty parts of tin to five of antimony and one of copper) used in bearings to diminish friction”).

   Synonyms: (rare) Babbitt's metal, bearing metal

Alternative forms

• babbit (nonstandard)

Translations

Verb

babbitt (third-person singular simple present babbitts, present participle babbitting, simple past and past participle babbitted)

1. (transitive) To line (something) with babbitt metal to reduce friction.

Alternative forms

• babbit (nonstandard)

Translations

Etymology 2

From Babbitt, the surname of George Babbitt, the title character of the novel Babbitt (1922) by the American author Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951). The word was also popularized by the George (1898–1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) song “The Babbitt and the Bromide”, first featured in the 1927 musical Funny Face and later in the film Ziegfeld Follies (1945).

Noun

babbitt (plural babbitts)

1. (US, dated) Alternative letter-case form of Babbitt (“a person who subscribes complacently to materialistic middle-class ideals”)
   • 1930 The Literary digest, Volume 105, Funk and Wagnalls, p.21

     One speaks of a babbitt habit, a babbitt era. Nothing is more true. America recognized itself in Babbitt, it demurred, but it also admired.

   • [2002 Tamkang review, Volume 33, Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, p.158

     [...] a "babbitt" is a person full of self-confident bluster who is nevertheless a narrowminded philistine and a hypocrite.]

   • 2003 William Hyland, George Gershwin: a new biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, p.116

     Ira relished telling the story that Fred Astaire took him aside and said he knew what a babbitt was, but what was a bromide?

Derived terms

• babbittry, Babbittry

Translations

Notes

References

Further reading

• babbitt (alloy) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Babbitt (novel) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• babbitt in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.