English

Alternative forms

• bubbie
• bobbe
• bobeh
• bubby
• bube

Noun

bubbe ‎(plural bubbes)

1. grandmother.
   • 1994: Steven C. Dubin, Arresting Images, p x.

     My bubbe's inability to write in English turned out to be a blessing: she pressed me into service as her scribe at an early age.

   • 1996: Joan C. Hawxhurst, Bubbe & Gram: My Two Grandmothers, blurb

     A little girl describes the various things she does with her Jewish grandmother, Bubbe, and her Christian grandmother, Gram, and what she has learned about both.

   • 1999: Linda Barnes, A Trouble of Fools, p1

     I never met my bubbe, my grandma, the source of all my mother's Yiddish proverbs ...

   • 2001: Elizabeth Sussman Nassau, Raisins and Almonds, in Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul (Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Dov Peretz Elkins, eds.), p238

     When I showed my bubbe, she said I had found a memory of the snake, and that memories were precious.

2. Any elderly woman.
   • 1979 Stephen Longstreet, The Dream Seekers, ISBN 0523405014, page 174:

     "You heard the bubbe," said Josie. "There isn't any. You act up and cry and I'll give you the back of my hand."

Related terms

• bubbe-meise

See also

• zayde

References

• OED 2006