babe in arms
1
7.2
- noun
- /beɪb ɪn ɑrmz/
:
bebé en brazos
- As a newbie to the job, he felt like a babe in arms among his more experienced colleagues.
- woman with a babe in arms
Examples
-
But if we're babes in arms -
-
The mother gently rocked her babe in arms to sleep while singing a lullaby.
-
His seat was immediately claimed by a Black woman with a babe in arms.
Fiction book (1990) -
Deserting me and his own child - a babe in arms!
-
They call us babes in arms -
-
There was a man and wife with two well-grown sons and a ten-year-old daughter, and a young couple, the woman with a babe in arms.
Fiction book (1993) -
The leer wrested itself into something a babe in arms would have found disturbing.
Fiction book (1992) -
This night, almost all of the tourists were white and southern: young adults with babes in arms, elderly couples, adolescents.
Blog text (12) -
At the festival, there were many families enjoying the day with their cute babe in arms.
Synonyms
487
2.8
A person who behaves in a childish way
411
1.0
A very young child usually under one year who is not yet walking or talking
51
1.0
A very young child who cannot yet walk or talk
1
9.8
A baby or very young child
1
8.1
A person who is inexperienced and easily harmed or tricked
A very young child such as a newborn
A very cute baby who looks innocent
Antonyms
How Inexperienced
Surface Forms
Morphology
The primary meaning 'a very young child who is being carried' is directly and compositionally derived from 'babe' + 'in' + 'arms' (a baby in someone's arms). This is a common, cross-linguistic image so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily understand it; the secondary figurative sense ('inexperienced') is metaphorically related to the literal image but does not prevent overall transparency.
Etymology
Babe in arms comes from the image of a babe held in someone's arms, a very small child who is still carried. Because such a child needs care and cannot act alone, people use the phrase for someone who is very inexperienced or 'naive'.