babe
Americannoun
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babes
plural
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a baby or child.
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an innocent or inexperienced person.
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Southern U.S. Usually Babe (used, often before the surname, as a familiar name for a boy or man, especially the youngest of a family.)
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Slang.
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Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. a girl or woman, especially an attractive one.
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an attractive young man.
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Sometimes Babe an affectionate or familiar term of address (sometimes offensive when used to strangers, casual acquaintances, subordinates, etc., especially by a male to a female).
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idioms
noun
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a baby
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informal a naive, gullible, or unsuspecting person (often in the phrase a babe in arms )
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informal a young woman or man perceived as being sexually attractive
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of babe
First recorded in 1150–1200; 1915–20 babe for def. 4; Middle English; early Middle English baban, probably nursery word in origin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Even so, during their daily check-ins, Grace and Todd still call each other babe and exchange declarations of love.
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2026
And I’m like, babe, I would if I could.”
From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2026
“Yep they aren’t compatible babe girl only wants a man with $$$,” one reply reads.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 3, 2026
As Swift and Carpenter say, “You don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe, and you’re never gonna wanna.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2025
He drove over last Saturday with this English babe that's in this new picture he's writing.
From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
Well, from the mouths of babes, he was a trillion percent right.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2025
She ended her message: "Guten Tag babes x"
From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2024
The theater is humming with happy cast and crew, some with their little kids who had been babes in arms while the movie was shot — and ended up as extras.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 8, 2023
“Out of the mouths of babes seemed the most palatable way to introduce Blacks to the funny pages,” she wrote.
From New York Times ● Feb. 7, 2023
Mom, noon, and night they came, old folks and little children, big men and small ones, barefoot girls and women with babes at their breasts.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
