baa

Etymology

It imitates the bleat of a sheep or lamb.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The OED takes the verb as the imitative formation and the noun as formed from it,^[2] while Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford give the noun first.^[7][4] The OED compares Norman bai and Catalan be (“sheep”);^[2][7] Hoad compares German bäh and Latin bee,^[8] and Etymonline notes the bleating bee in Varro, bālō (“to bleat”) and Ancient Greek βληχή (blēkhḗ, “a bleating”).^[7] Partridge calls it an echoic rural and nursery word, like bow-wow.^[9] Johnson derived the verb from the Latin verb.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The cry of a sheep: 1589, in the pamphlet Pappe with Hatchet.^[2][11] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the noun to the early 16th century,^[4][12] and the 1989 edition of the OED has the compound baa-lamb, a nursery word for a lamb or a toy lamb, from 1580;^[13] Etymonline likewise notes that baa was a name for a child's toy sheep before the 1580s.^[7] Weekley remarks that the word is recorded only from the 16th century but must be very old.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "the cry of a sheep" and quoted Sidney's Arcadia for the verb: "He treble baas for help, but none can get".^[10] Skeat noted its use by Shakespeare.^[6] The nursery compound baa-lamb still means a lamb in children's speech.^[4][13]

Timeline

• 1589 – noun, the bleat of a sheep or lamb.^[2][11]
• 1593 – verb, to bleat, in Sidney's Arcadia.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED dated it before 1586, and Merriam-Webster to about 1586.^[13][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The bleat of a sheep or lamb, or of a goat: A faint baa came from the far side of the hedge.^[11][15][16]

Verb

1. To make the cry of a sheep; to bleat: The ewes baaed at the gate all morning.^[11][15][16]

Usage notes

Shetland dialect has words spelled baa for a half-sunken rock visible only at low tide and for a breaking wave, and in Scots baa or baw meant to lull a child to sleep; these have no connection with the sheep's cry.^[17]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)