Word of the Day

: March 4, 2012

Babbitt

noun BAB-it

What It Means

: a person and especially a business or professional man who conforms unthinkingly to prevailing middle-class standards

Babbitt in Context

The candidate's economic agenda appeals to the frugal Babbitts in his constituency.

"There is something delightfully counterintuitive about [author Richard] Florida's theory as he chooses to state it: you would have thought it was dull Babbitts who made a city commercially successful, but no-it's kids with scruffy beards and tattoos who have alt-rock bands … and wait tables in vegan restaurants."-From an article by Nicholas Lemann in The New Yorker, June 27, 2011

Did You Know?

He was a prosperous real-estate broker, a pillar of his Midwestern community, and a believer in success for its own sake. George F. Babbitt was his name and complacent American middle-class values were his game. He was created by Sinclair Lewis in the satirical 1922 novel Babbitt, and the fictional protagonist's name quickly became a synonym for one who adheres to a conformist, materialistic, unimaginative way of life.