'babbittism' originates from English, specifically the proper name 'Babbitt', the title character of Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel 'Babbitt', where the name represented a 'middle-class complacency and materialism'.

'babbittism' changed from the character name 'Babbitt' combined with the suffix '-ism' (used to denote a doctrine, practice, or characteristic) and eventually became the modern English noun 'babbittism'.

Initially, it meant 'the characteristic traits of Lewis's fictional character Babbitt', but over time it evolved into its current meaning of 'narrow-minded, materialistic bourgeois complacency'.