swaddling clothes

plural noun

1. clothes consisting of long, narrow strips of cloth for swaddling an infant.
2. long garments for an infant.
3. the period of infancy or immaturity, as of a person, or incipience, as of a thing:

   Nuclear energy is still in its swaddling clothes.

4. rigid supervision or restriction of actions or movements, as of the immature:

   new nations that are freeing themselves of their swaddling clothes.

swaddling clothes

plural noun

1. long strips of linen or other cloth formerly wrapped round a newly born baby
2. restrictions or supervision imposed on the immature

Word History and Origins

Origin of swaddling clothes¹

First recorded in 1525–35

Example Sentences

I reached for the things—swaddling clothes I called them—and Severnius helped me to array myself in them.

From Project Gutenberg

When opened for the purpose of grasping the sugar, the body, which is hollow, discloses the image of a baby in swaddling clothes.

From Project Gutenberg

Otherwise, he is reduced to a state of mental infancy, and kept in intellectual swaddling clothes.

From Project Gutenberg

The new life of science was feeble at first, and remained long in its swaddling clothes.

From Project Gutenberg

I have yet to hear of the birth of this infant navy, for which we have not yet begun to make swaddling clothes.

From Project Gutenberg