English▸ noun a large Old World ground-dwelling monkey with a long doglike snout, large teeth, and naked callosities on the buttocks. Baboons are social animals and live in troops.
Genera Papio and Mandrillus, family Cercopithecidae: several species, including the drill and mandrill.
▪ an ugly or uncouth person.
– ORIGIN Middle English (denoting a grotesque figure used in architecture): from Old French babuin or medieval Latin babewynus, perhaps from Old French baboue ‘muzzle, grimace’.