baby's dummy
- noun
- /ˈbeɪbiz ˈdʌmi/
- UK
:
chupete
- The mother calmed her crying child with a baby's dummy.
Examples
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She attached the baby's dummy to a clip so it wouldn't get lost.
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The baby's dummy fell on the floor.
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Some parents worry about using a baby's dummy too much.
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She always keeps a baby's dummy in her bag.
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The mother calmed her crying child with a baby's dummy.
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Some parents worry about using a baby's dummy too much.
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She attached the baby's dummy to a clip so it wouldn't get lost.
Synonyms
16
1.4
A rubber or plastic object that a baby sucks to feel calm
1
3.3
An object like a pacifier that calms a baby
1
2.4
A small rubber or plastic object a baby sucks to feel calm
Surface Forms
Morphology
baby's + dummy
The specific sense 'pacifier' is a lexicalized, dialectal meaning of 'dummy' (chiefly British) and is not compositionally derivable from 'baby' + the literal senses of 'dummy' (e.g. model, imitation, or fool). A B1 learner who only knows the basic meanings of the constituents would likely not infer the specialized object sense without prior exposure; many languages likewise use a dedicated word for this item, so the meaning is unpredictable from the parts.
Etymology
Baby's dummy may come from the idea of a dummy as an object that stands in for something living. The rubber or plastic piece is a quiet substitute for a mother's breast or a thumb and is used to 'calm' the baby, so the word dummy came to mean this small thing for the baby to suck.