Balaam
English
Etymology
The journalism sense is an allusion to the miracle of Balaam's ass speaking.
Proper noun
Balaam
- A diviner in the Torah.
- 1611, King James Version of the Bible (Authorized Version), Numbers 22:28:
- And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
- 1611, King James Version of the Bible (Authorized Version), Numbers 22:28:
Derived terms
Noun
Balaam (plural Balaams)
- (slang, archaic, journalism) A paragraph describing something wonderful, used to fill out a newspaper column.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.