🇺🇸
/ˈbæbʊn/
🇺🇸
/ˈbæbʊn/
🇬🇧
/ˈbæbuːn/
🇬🇧
/ˈbæbuːn/
Plural
baboons
A baboon is a large, intelligent, ground-dwelling monkey with a long muzzle, powerful jaws, and striking facial features — often seen in African savannas and rocky outcrops. Known for their complex social groups called troops, baboons are highly adaptable and famously cheeky, sometimes raiding campsites or stealing food from tourists.
A curious baboon peered into our safari vehicle while we sat quietly.
Baboons spend most of their day foraging for roots, fruits, and small animals.
The alpha male baboon let out a loud bark to warn the troop of an approaching leopard.
Conservationists are monitoring baboon populations to understand how habitat loss affects their behavior.
In many African cultures, baboons appear in folklore as clever tricksters or symbols of vigilance.
baboon
Comes from the Wolof (West African) word 'babon' or possibly via Portuguese 'babuino', ultimately tracing to a Bantu root meaning 'monkey' or 'ape-like creature'. It is a lexical borrowing rather than a derivational compound — the word functions as a primary, unanalyzable zoological noun in English with no productive internal morphemes. Examples include baboon, baboonery (rare, humorous collective noun), and baboonish (adjective form, though not listed in core word_forms). Core meaning: a large, terrestrial, dog-faced Old World monkey native to Africa and Arabia.