babushka

Definition

An Eastern European old woman.

Etymology

Borrowed from Russian ба́бушка (bábuška, “grandmother”), from Old East Slavic бабушка (babuška, “grandmother, midwife”). First attested in the 1830s.

Example Sentences

• "Yet, much as I loved to listen to it, standing there in the heat of all the lighted candles and dressed in my heavy shuba and felt boots, I invariably, halfway through the service, would begin to feel an intolerable pain across my shoulders which would spread across my back, gradually getting worse, until in the end I was forced to go to the back of the church and find a corner on a bench especially placed there for all the old babushkas and dedushkas who were also unable to bear the strain of standing throughout the whole service."
• "There was a 92-year-old babushka who was injured, and we put her on the stretcher and helped get her out."
• "As a boy, I hand-made pelmeni with my babushka Alla, my hands and face covered in flour as we worked in the cold of my grandparents’ basement in Paterson, New Jersey."