swaddling clothes
clothes consisting of long, narrow strips of cloth for swaddling an infant.
long garments for an infant.
the period of infancy or immaturity, as of a person, or incipience, as of a thing: Nuclear energy is still in its swaddling clothes.
rigid supervision or restriction of actions or movements, as of the immature: new nations that are freeing themselves of their swaddling clothes.
Origin of swaddling clothes
1- Also called swaddling bands (for defs. 1, 2).
Words Nearby swaddling clothes
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use swaddling clothes in a sentence
I reached for the things—swaddling clothes I called them—and Severnius helped me to array myself in them.
Unveiling a Parallel | Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella MarchantWhen opened for the purpose of grasping the sugar, the body, which is hollow, discloses the image of a baby in swaddling clothes.
Curious Church Customs | VariousOtherwise, he is reduced to a state of mental infancy, and kept in intellectual swaddling clothes.
When the Holy Ghost is Come | S. L. BrengleThe new life of science was feeble at first, and remained long in its swaddling clothes.
I have yet to hear of the birth of this infant navy, for which we have not yet begun to make swaddling clothes.
Richard Carvel, Complete | Winston Churchill
British Dictionary definitions for swaddling clothes
long strips of linen or other cloth formerly wrapped round a newly born baby
restrictions or supervision imposed on the immature
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Browse