babe

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a baby or young child; an inexperienced person; an attractive person

   The babe slept soundly in its mother's arms.

Simplified etymology

Babe probably arose from the repeated ba sound made by very young children and shares this imitative origin with baby and babble. It originally meant simply “child” and later became restricted to a child too young to walk. In the 1870s it denoted the youngest member of a class of US military cadets, then became a friendly form of address between men, and by the early 20th century could mean an attractive young woman.

Middle English babe, a reduplicative nursery word imitating an infant's babbling, ultimately of onomatopoeic origin.

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