Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a thug, a ruffian; a ne’er-do-well; thus baboonish adj., foolish.

1380–5		Wyclif in Works 161: There is the curious babwynrie formed from baboon [F&H].
c.1500		‘Robin Hood and the Stranger’ in Ritson Robin Hood XI Pt 2 82: The prince he then began to storm, / Cries Fool, fanatick, baboon!
1592		Nashe Pierce Pennilesse 48: Thou great baboune, thou Pigmie Braggart.
1600		Look About You xiv: Your dear son Jack-an-apes; Your monkey, your baboon, your ass, your gull!
1611		L. Barry Ram-Alley IV i: Sure this Baboune is a great Puritane.
1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair II v: Are you under-peering, you baboon?
1628		G. Wither Britain’s Remembrancer canto I 29: Make him abhor such Apes, and such Baboones / As Parasites, and impudent Buffoones.
1632		T. Nabbes Covent Garden II ii: Thou art a Baboone of formality, and an ape of court-ship.
1664		R. Howard The Committee IV i: Out upon the precise Baboon.
1675		F. Fane Love in the Dark II i : jac.: Oh, do you want your scurvy Wainscot chops? I, there they are, my pretty sweet Baboon. int.: You might use some moderation in your abuses.
1681		Otway Soldier’s Fortune III i: If my design but succeed upon this baboon, I’ll be canonized.
1702		Vanbrugh Aesop II i: Hark — I hear the old Baboon Cough.
1712		ref. in H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 29: The prototypical Frenchman in John Arbuthnot’s The History of John Bull (1712) was Lewis Baboon.
1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 7: His Skittish and Baboonish Majesty was set in the Stocks.
1734		J. Gay Distressd Wife III vi: How can you, Jack, be so inhuman, as not to rescue the Girl out of the Paws of that old Baboon?
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 70: Sink me, says he, you moon-ey’d loon, / Got on a bitch by some baboon, / (For nothing but baboon and punkee, / Could get a thing so like a monkey).
1802		G. Colman Yngr Poor Gentleman I i: Why, you booby, who ha’ made thee such a baboon?
1823		J.F. Cooper Pilot (1824) II 142: A damn’d young baboon-behav’d curmudgeon.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 15 Mar. 1/1: I would stop the progress of a certain young baboon, of making himself one of the most outreageous of all fools.
1846		D. Corcoran Pickings from N.O. Picayune 208: And if he came on business up stairs [...] what brought him down stairs, the baboon?
1857		Paul Pry (London 15 Aug. n.p.: THE BATH BABOON. A sight for the Bath chaps.— To be seen alive, daily, on the doorstep of the High Bailiff's office [...] a baboon of peculiar stature, with a slight moustache, looking after the girls, and causing immense attraction.
1864		G.A. Sala Quite Alone III 124: ‘Sulky young baboon,’ the hostess would continue.
1876		J. Miller First Fam’lies in the Sierras 132: His face was never relieved by a smile, and his chin stuck out fearfully; so that one day [...] Snapping Andy [...] called him ‘Old Baboon’.
1898		A.J. Boyd Shellback 222: You miserable-looking sick baboons.
1902		J. Masefield ‘Evening – Regatta Day’ in Salt-Water Ballads 51: D’ye hear, you Port Mahone baboon, I ask you, do you hear?
1916		P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 100: Baboon! Huh! Baboon! Yes; you’re the baboon!
1928		Hecht & MacArthur Front Page Act I: Now, listen, you lousy baboon.
1933		Hecht & Fowler Great Magoo 62: You daffy, titterin’, slug-nutty baboon!
1935		C. Drew ‘Gozo’ in Bulletin 27 Mar. 46/1: He lost the first bout we got him by mistakin’ the referee’s leg for the other baboon’s.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 109: You look here, you tow-headed, bow-legged, ugly-faced baboon.
c.1950		K. Howard Small Time Crooks 20: If that big baboon reckons I pay him to brush me off for a floozie, he’s got a pay-roll comin’ to him that ain’t in dollar bills.
1965		P. Baragwanath The Brave Remain 98: Look, baboon! When a large body of police go through an area, there is no dagga left to buy.
1969		A. Fugard Boesman and Lena Act I: Stop that baboon language!
1976		H. Selby Jr Demon (1979) 11: Throw it past the big baboon.
1986		Baron New Amer. Library 17 Sept. n.p.: She confirms what she has always suspected: that all men are baboons [R].
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 275: One of them had been gunned down later by a baboon.
2011		J. MacArthur ‘Jack Rabbit Slim’s Cellar’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] A place to hide [...] somewhere my brother or his baboons won’t find me.

2. (US Und.) a very hard-working prostitute.

1937

‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 157: She was a ‘baboon,’ always on the go, always talking and quarreling with her man.

3. (Aus./S.Afr./US) an abusive term for a black or coloured person.

1839		‘Mrs Crow’s Arrival’ in Jim Crow’s Song-Book 10: I travelled to logicom gardens, / To see the beasts, one afternoon, / Vhere dey vere going to steal me, / To show me for a baboon.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth, WA) Supp. 19 Dec. 25/2: If I were President of the United States I’d make it a criminal offence for any boxer to go into the ring with one of the smoke-colored baboons.
1938		N. Devitt Spell of S. Afr. 98: ‘Oh!’ muttered the delinquent audibly, ‘Must I appear before that bloody baboon?’ The coloured magistrate looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said in faultless English, ‘you must.’.
1961		D. Bee Children of Yesterday 82: He called the old Basuto a ‘bloody old baboon’.
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 23: Hello! Don’t you fucking baboons know that this is the goddam enemy?
2017		Dispatch Live Online (East London, S. Afr.) 11 Sept. 🌐 A manager of a poultry company is facing a barrage of allegations after allegedly calling a black employee a baboon.