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Baby Bell

American  

noun

  1. one of the seven regional telephone companies formed after the breakup of the Bell system in 1983.


Etymology

Origin of Baby Bell

An Americanism dating back to 1985–90

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:

He said that the argument for allowing cable company mergers was the same that allowed for the consolidation of the Baby Bell companies after the breakup of AT&T. “It’s a geographic extension,” he said.

From New York Times Feb. 15, 2014

April 1997: SBC closes acquisition of a fellow Baby Bell, Pacific Telesis Group, for more than $16 billion.

From BusinessWeek Mar. 21, 2011

It's ironic that at a telephone company someone can talk about being entrepreneurial, but we were starting our own Baby Bell.

From Washington Post Dec. 5, 2010

U S West, a Baby Bell telephone company with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, has announced a phasing out of 9,000 jobs, about one- seventh of its work force.

From Time Magazine Archive

He has been an industrious worker on the newspaper press, and is the author of Baby Bell, a beautiful poem of child-death.

From The Canadian Elocutionist by Howard, Anna Kelsey

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