a confusion of voices and other sounds
(Genesis 11:1-11) a tower built by Noah's descendants (probably in Babylon) who intended it to reach up to heaven; God foiled them by confusing their language so they could no longer understand one another
The name of a Biblical city, it is the traditional religious explanation for the presence of many languages in the world. In the Biblical story, the people of the city of Babel, in an excess of pride, sought to build a tower to heaven. In response, God confounded their languages so that they could no longer understand each other. Religious scholars dated the beginning of the polylinguistic world to this incident.
See Tower of Babel and Babylon.
Babel (; Bavel) is the name used in the Hebrew Bible for the city of Babylon (Akkadian Babilu), notable in Genesis as the supposed location of the Tower of Babel.