Alibabaとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Arabic علي بابا. The use of Ali Baba to designate a type of container originates from the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (see the use as proper noun below), suggesting the appearance of the oil jars in which the thieves hide in the story.

発音

• IPA: /ˈælɪˌbɑbə/

固有名詞

Ali Baba

1. The fictional protagonist of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, famous for his encounter with forty thieves and their treasure trove cave that opens on the command "open sesame".

派生語

• Ali Baba bag

名詞

Ali Baba (plural Ali Babas)

1. (slang) An extremely lucky person, especially one who acquires a large fortune by luck or by chance.
2. (slang, ethnic slur, US, military) An Iraqi.
3. (chiefly attributive) A large container, such as a jar or a basket, with a flat base and usually a rounded body that tapers to a narrower neck.
   • 2009, Martha Reinhard Smallwood Field [Catherine Cole, pseud.], The Story of the Old French Market, ca. 1916, no pagination, quoted in Daniel H. Usner, Jr., Indian Work: Language and Livelihood in Native American History, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 101:

     Towering over all these are the huge Ali Baba baskets, square at the bottom, round at the top, and fitted with square covers that pull down like a Dutch smoker's cap.

   • 2004 May 11, Sgt Len Scott RAPC, “My Billets in Algiers: A Pub, a Casino and a Bank”, in BBC‎, retrieved 16 April 2023:

     We found little piles in the oddest places - the oddest being within an Ali Baba jar some six feet high.

   • 2020, Marchell Abrahams, chapter 7, in Angels at Twenty Past, Troubador Publishing, →ISBN:

     Behind what looked like—but surely couldn't be—an oversized Ali Baba laundry basket dribbling earth and pebbles over the floor, peeped a save.

   • 2003, Nigel Slater, “Duckling à l’orange”, in Toast, Fourth Estate, published 2010, →ISBN:

     And don’t forget to put your dirty clothes in the Ali Baba.