Dictionary

bubba en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈbʌbə/
• (US) audio

Etymology

Possibly an alteration of brother or bub, said by a young child not yet able to pronounce brother properly, but note similar terms in other Germanic languages derived from Proto-Germanic *bō-, *bō-, such as West Frisian bobbe, German Bube (“boy”), dialectal Swedish babbe (“little boy”), English babe, Dutch boef (“mischievous lad, rascal”), Middle Low German bōve, and Icelandic bófi. Also compare sissy.

Meanings

1. (Southern-US, childish) Brother; used as term of familiar address.
   • "Hey, bubba, is that really you? Goddamn. I haven't heard from you in a coon's age." / "Don't 'hey, bubba' me, you sonofabitch. 2007, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Low Red Moon, page 27:
2. A working-class white male from the southern US, stereotyped as loutish.
   • Will Ferrell and his creative partner, the writer and director Adam McKay, are, let’s face it, our national poets on the subject of dimwitted, bubba arrogance and the redemptive powers of failure, their poems seemingly conceived in a midnight frenzy of brilliance on the back of a bag of Doritos. 2009 February 13, Ginia Bellafante, “A Pitcher’s Life After the Third Strike”, in New York Times:
   • Their subjects were not bubbas from the bayous but affluent students at the University of Michigan who had lived in the South for at least six years. 2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin, published 2012, page 120:

Forms

Deriveds

Bubba

Relateds

brotha · bro · bubby · brother