Standard Lemma guide

balbal

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈbɑːlbəl/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈbæl-/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /ˈbɑlbəl/
  • General-American: /ˈbæl-/
  • General-American: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • rhymes with -ælbəl

1

noun

Meaning 1

In pre-Islamic Turkic cultures, an anthropomorphic stonen stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan (“type of prehistoric burial mound”); some are thought to symbolize enemies which a deceased warrior killed in their lifetime.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: archaeology, history, human-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: kurgan stele

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Old Turkic 𐰉𐰞𐰉𐰞 (b1l1b1l1 /⁠balbal⁠/), from a Mongolic language.

Across languages

Translations

10 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Azerbaijani: balbal — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Finnish: balbal — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Kazakh: балбал (balbal) — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Kyrgyz: балбал (balbal) — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Mongolian: балбал (balbal) — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Russian: балба́л (balbál) — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Swedish: balbal — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Turkish: balbal — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Tuvan: кижи-көжээ (kiji-köjee) — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan
  • Ukrainian: балба́л (balbál) — anthropomorphic stone stele embedded in the ground at or near a kurgan