A soft, backless slipper or shoe, typically worn in Muslim countries, often decorated with embroidery.
From French babouche, borrowed from Arabic بابوج (bābūj), which may derive from Persian پاپوش (pāpūsh) meaning foot-covering. The word traveled along trade routes from the Middle East to Europe in the 17th century.
Baboushes show how footwear gets its own slang across cultures—similar soft slippers appear in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic traditions, each with slightly different names, yet Europeans borrowed the Arabic version specifically because they were so impressed by the comfort!
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