 The feminine form is "baʿalah" (; ), meaning "mistress" in the sense of a female owner or lady of the house and still serving as a rare word for "wife".Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god Belenus.Like EN in Sumerian, the Akkadian "bēlu" and Northwest Semitic "baʿal" (as well as its feminine form "baʿalah") was used as a title of various deities in the Mesopotamian and Semitic pantheons.