Babe
name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A baby or infant; a very young human or animal. literary, poetic
"These events came to pass when he was but a babe."
- 2 a very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk wordnet
- 3 An attractive person, especially a young woman. slang
"She's a real babe!"
- 4 Darling (term of endearment). endearing
"Hey, babe, how's about you and me getting together?"
- 1 A male given name or nickname
"Ruth was called “Babe” because of his youth (and baby face) when he signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1914 at age nineteen. He was also called “Bambino”—Italian for baby."
Example
More examples"The cradle is as brand new as the born babe lying in it."
Etymology
From Middle English babe, a variant of earlier baban, perhaps from Old English *baba (“boy, child”), from Proto-West Germanic *babō, from Proto-Germanic *babô, reduplicated variant of *ba-, *bō- (“father, brother, close male relation”). cognates and related terms Related to Old Frisian bobba (“child”) (whence North Frisian babbe, babb, babe (“child”)), Old High German Babo (a male forename), see boy. Otherwise, origin obscure. Compare mama, dada, papa. Welsh baban (“baby”), believed by Skeat to be a mutation of maban, a diminutive of mab (“son”), is probably rather a borrowing from English. Cognate also with English bub.
Use of the common noun babe as a (nick)name.
Related phrases
More for "babe"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.