Z etymologii polskiej: baka, baki
From Polish Etymology: baka, baki

Summary/Abstract: In Polish, the word baka, baki pl. was never used in the meaning of ‘eye, eyes’. The phraseological expression świecić bakę (baki) komuś (‘to try to gain someone’s favour with flattery’), common in Polish dialects (mainly in Lesser Poland) and occurring in several formal variants, was characterised by its original meaning: ‘to shine a torch on someone’, and the word baka (from the Middle Low German bake) meant ‘torch, sail’. It is therefore a misunderstanding to connect the Polish świecić bakę (baki) komuś with the Ukrainian word báka, báky and the Belarussian word báka, báki ‘eye, eyes’, which have a completely different origin, namely they are treated as a back derivative of the Ukrainian verb báčyty, Belorussian báčyc’, Polish baczyć from the Proto Slavic *bačiti, northern dialectal ‘to pay attention to something, to notice, to watch, to look, to see’. As for phraseological expression, such as the Ukrainian zabyváty báky, Belarussian zabivác’ báki, Russian báki zabiváť, it is difficult to decide unequivocally whether we are dealing here with the same meaning ‘eye, eyes’, or with the meaning ‘false information, gossip, nonsense, lies, jokes, uncreated things’, and the meaning of the whole phrase ‘to feed someone nonsense, lies, to tell untrue things, to lie, to cheat’. In this meaning, the noun baki could be a derivative of the verb bakať, which comes from the Proto-Slavic *bakati ‘to shout, to call out, to scold, to babble, to chatter’.

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