baby talk
- the speech of children learning to talk, marked by syntactic differences from adult speech and by phonetic modifications like lisping, lalling, and the omission and substitution of sounds.
- a style of speech used by adults in addressing children, pets, or sweethearts, and formed in imitation of the voice and pronunciation of children learning to talk: it is generally characterized in English by the addition of diminutive endings to words, the use of special words and pet names, and the systematic distortion of certain words, as dolly for doll, teensy-weensy for tiny, oo for you, and twain for train.
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Origin of baby talk
First recorded in 1830–40
Usage note
Baby Talk is used as a label in this dictionary for well-known terms traditionally thought to exemplify the type of baby talk used by adults.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for baby talk
Historical Examples
Surely it is only the “baby-talk” of the wisdom not yet comprehensible to human hearts!
An Orkney MaidAmelia Edith Huddleston Barr
She poured him some and teased gently, "What's the matter, Ronny—back to baby-talk?"
GamesKatherine MacLean
If she does talk 'baby-talk,' I imagine she does it very prettily, and I'm sure I've no objection.
SeventeenBooth Tarkington
But now, as she took him in her arms, she astonished them with such eloquence of baby-talk as baby had never heard before.
Janet's Love and ServiceMargaret M Robertson
How often are children spoken to in baby-talk, gush, hollow questions, and a condescension as irritating as coming teeth!
The Fall of the YearDallas Lore Sharp
baby talk
- the speech of very young children learning to talk
- an adult's imitation of this
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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