Forms: 4–6 babi, 5 babee, 6 babye, 6–7 babie, 4– baby; 6–9 dial. babby. [A pet-form of BABE (see -Y4), which passed into familiar use, while babe remained as the dignified word (e.g., in Scripture) and is now chiefly poetic.]
1. An infant, a young child of either sex. (Formerly synonymous with child; now usually restricted to an infant ‘in arms.’)
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVII. 94. With penaunce and passioun of þat babi.
1393. Gower, Conf., I. 265. The yonge babies crieden alle.
c. 1475. Babees Book, 45. Yee Babees in housholde that done duelle.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, V. (1822), 438. We bere na armoure aganis babbyis.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., II. i. 6. You’le kisse me hard, and speake to me, as if I were a Baby still.
1771. Fenning, Eng. Dict., Baby, a young child, distinguished from ‘babe,’ because that is applied to children who can both walk and speak, but this to those who can do neither.
1864. Tennyson, En. Ard., 194. Lightly rocking baby’s cradle.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., 3. ‘The fire that warned you when you were a babby.’
† 2. A doll, puppet. Obs.
1552. Huloet, Baby or puppet for chyldren, Pupa.
1563. Homilies, Idolatry, III. (1844), 238. Puppets and babies for old fools in dotage.
1651. Lilly, Chas. I. (1774), 219. Whose father sold babies and such pedlary ware in Cheapside.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 500, ¶ 3. Little girls tutoring their Babies.
1721. Pope, Let. Blount, 3 Oct. Sober over her Sampler, or gay over a jointed Baby.
† 3. The small image of oneself reflected in the pupil of another’s eye; hence to look babies. Obs.
1593. Tell-trothe’s N. Y. Gift, 39. That babie which lodges in womens eies.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. ii. VI. v. (1651), 576. They may kiss and coll, lye and look babies in one anothers eyes.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 66. Only to speculate his own Baby in their eyes.
1682. Mrs. Behn, City Heiress, III. i. Sigh’d, and lookt Babies in his gloating Eyes.
† 4. pl. Pictures in books; perh. orig. the ornamental tail-pieces and borders with cupids and grotesque figures interworked (cf. BABERY). Still in north dial.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas (1621), 5. We gaze but on the babies and the cover, The gaudy flowers and edges painted over.
1618. Hales, Gold. Rem. (1673), II. 8. Provided that, in the Tables and Maps, there were no pictures and babies.
1655. Fuller, Hist. Camb. (1840), 39. More pleased with babies in books than children are.
5. fig. (contemptuously) A foolish or childish fellow. To smell of the baby: to be childish.
1603. Patient Grissil, 17. My brisk spangled baby will come into a stationer’s shop.
1618. Breton, Court. & Countrym., 19 (D.). So long in their horne booke that, doe what they can, they will smell of the Baby till they can not see to read.
1660. Milton, Free Commonw., Wks. (1851), 430. If we were aught els but Sluggards or Babies.
6. transf. The young of an animal; cf. B. 1 a.
1883. G. Allen, in Knowledge, 18 Aug., 97/2. While he [the young hare] is still a baby.
7. fig. A (comparatively) tiny thing; cf. B. 1 a.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, vii. 88. Turrets beside which the leaning tower of Pisa is a baby.
B. Comb. (in which baby approaches in use to an adj.)
1. General relations: a. appositive (hence = ‘little, tiny’), as baby-boy, -figure (1606), -germ, -girl, -stream, (and of animals) baby-bird, -elephant, -snake; b. objective gen. with verbal sb. or pple., as baby-eater, -seller (1634), -worship, -farming; c. similative, as baby-blind (1627), -mild; d. attrib. (of or befitting a baby), hence = ‘infantine, innocent,’ ‘little, tiny,’ ‘babyish, silly,’ as baby age, brow (1605), dance, face, hand, mind, sole, talk; e. attrib. (for a baby’s use), as baby-basket, -clothes, -clouts, -linen, -things (1783); f. parasynthetic deriv., as baby-faced, -featured (1780).
1634. Bayne, On Coloss., 357. The *baby age of the Church.
1884. Q. Victoria, More Leaves, 168. The *baby-basket sent her … when King James I. was born.
1864. Kingsley, Water-bab., 279. An old song … learnt when she was a little *baby-bird.
1627. H. Burton, Baiting Pope’s Bull, 6. Filiall, or rather *baby-blind obedience.
1605. Shaks., Macb., IV. i. 88. Weares vpon his *Baby-brow, the round And top of Soueraignty.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, II. 174. *Baby-browed And speechless Being.
1770. J. Love, Cricket, 7. Leave the dissolving Song, the *baby Dance.
1848. Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., I. i. 40. Worshippers of black cats, *baby-eaters, and such like.
1864. Reader, 14 May, 626. The mind of a *baby elephant.
1713. Swift, Cadenus & V., Wks. 1755, III. II. 16. A *baby face, no life, no airs.
1883. A. Dobson, in Eng. Illust. Mag., Nov., 79/2. That *baby-faced beauty.
1780. Cowper, Progr. Error, 201. *Baby-featured, and of infant size.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 345. The *baby figure of the Gyant-masse Of things to come at large.
1842. Tennyson, Talking Oak, xx. She gamboll’d on the greens, A *baby-germ.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., I. i. 16. The Marchioness had a *baby-girl.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., II. 64. Feeds from its *baby-hand … The callow nestlings.
a. 1845. Hood, Lycus, Poems (1858), 307. The leopard was … *baby-mild in its feature.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 190. Infirm and *baby minds.
1634. J. Horne, Janua Ling., 123. *Baby-sellers [nugivendi] boast and speak proudly.
1864. Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 186. Tender pink five-beaded *baby-soles.
1864. Realm, 15 June, 5. Ravines from which Jumna, Indus, and Ganges, yet *baby streams, gush.
1850. Marg. Fuller, Wom. in 19th C. (1862), 311. To talk *baby-talk and give shallow accounts of deep things.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict., *Baby things, linamenta ad infantes recèns natos involvendum.
2. Special combinations: baby-farmer, one who takes in infants to nurse for payment, whence baby-farming, etc.; baby-house, a doll’s house, also, a toy-house barometer or hygrometer from which little dolls issue to indicate changes of weather; baby-jumper, a hoop or frame suspended by an elastic attachment, so that a young child secured in it may exercise its limbs; baby-like a., babyish, infantile, adv. as a baby does.
1884. Chr. World, 10 July, 513/3. *Baby-farming was vigorously denounced.
1750. H. Walpole, Lett. H. Mann, 218, II. 359. The Prince is building *baby-houses at Kew.
1779. Mackenzie, in Mirror, No. 21, ¶ 2. The little Dutch barometers, known by the name of *Babyhouses.
1801. Mar. Edgeworth, Good Fr. Gov. (1831), 107. I see neither … dressed dolls, nor baby-houses.
1803. Edin. Rev., II. 141. *Baby-like caprice.
1858. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., I. xxx. 116. If a man sees his child gored to death … does he say baby-like, ‘O naughty oxen!’
