bubbe meise
Pronunciations
bubbe meises | (BOB-uh MAY-sis) | listen |
Definitions
n. "Old wive's tale"; an untrue story, sometimes related to superstition.
n. "Something of little importance, an inconsequential thing or minor happening." (JPS)
Example Sentences
"Stop complaining about how much trouble it was to return this sweater. What a bubbe meise." (JPS)
"All the stuff about the oil lasting eight days is just a bubbe meise. What really happened is written down in the Book of Maccabees." (source)
Languages of Origin
- Textual Hebrew
- Yiddish
Etymology
באָבע־מעשׂה bóbe-mayse 'tall tale'
- Older: Jews who are middle-aged and older
- Ashkenazim: Jews with Ashkenazi heritage
- North America
- Great Britain
- South Africa
- Australia / New Zealand
- View More
- The New Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten and Lawrence Bush (New York, 2003[1968]).
- Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America, by Sol Steinmetz (Tuscaloosa, 1986).
- The JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, by Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, (Philadelphia, 2001).
- Dictionary of Jewish Usage: A Popular Guide to the Use of Jewish Terms, by Sol Steinmetz (Lanham, MD, 2005).
- View More
Who Uses This
Regions
Dictionaries
Alternative Spellings
bobe mayse, bubbe mayseh, bubbe-meise, bubbe-meiseh, bubbe-myseh
Notes
Despite the common assumption that this comes from באָבע bobe, Yiddish for "grandmother," it actually stems from בבֿא־בוך Bove-Bukh, a Yiddish romantic epic published in 16th-century Italy (and the term is sometimes spelled בבֿא־מעשׂה).
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