BABE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does babe mean? 

• BABE (noun)
  The noun BABE has 1 sense:

1. a very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk

  Familiarity information: BABE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BABE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

babe; baby; infant

Context example:

it sounds simple, but when you have your own baby it is all so different

Hypernyms ("babe" is a kind of...):

child; kid (a human offspring (son or daughter) of any age)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "babe"):

blue baby (an infant born with a bluish color; usually has a defective heart)

cherub (a sweet innocent baby)

abandoned infant; foundling (a child who has been abandoned and whose parents are unknown)

godchild (an infant who is sponsored by an adult (the godparent) at baptism)

neonate; newborn (a baby from birth to four weeks)

nurseling; nursling; suckling (an infant considered in relation to its nurse)

papoose; pappoose (an American Indian infant)

test-tube baby (a baby conceived by fertilization that occurs outside the mother's body; the woman's ova are removed and mixed with sperm in a culture medium - if fertilization occurs the blastocyte is implanted in the woman's uterus)

war baby (conceived or born during war)

 Context examples 

“Such a dainty color! Such a mellow voice! Eyes of a bashful maid, and hair like a three years' babe! Voila!”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One of these, the parlor, gay with an ingrain carpet and dolorous with a funeral card and a death-picture of one of her numerous departed babes, was kept strictly for company.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

"Shall the babes in arms tell us men the things we shall do?" Massuk demanded in a loud voice.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Her voice was full of tears, and what she said was so simple, so true, that we both seemed to see the dead babe stretched there on the carpet before us, and we could have joined in with words of pity and of grief.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And if you cannot, child, here my aunt rubbed her nose, you must just accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember, my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The nurse, to quiet her babe, made use of a rattle which was a kind of hollow vessel filled with great stones, and fastened by a cable to the child’s waist: but all in vain; so that she was forced to apply the last remedy by giving it suck.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“Go on, old babe of the woods!” “Have at it, Hampshire!” cried the archers laughing.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And from Sitka, Old Kinoos, who was Young Kinoos in those days, fled away with me, a babe in his arms, along the islands in the midst of the sea.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It was to be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow beings: one a smiling babe full of innocence and joy, the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)