baby needs new shoes
- idiom
- Informal
:
hay que gastar
- I just bought a new dress because baby needs new shoes!
Examples
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Whenever he wins a little money at poker, he yells, 'baby needs new shoes!'
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She playfully whispered 'baby needs new shoes' while shopping for handbags with her friends.
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Before buying a laptop he joked, 'baby needs new shoes!' to justify the purchase.
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Whenever I want to splurge, I say, baby needs new shoes.
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As he glanced at the latest gaming console, he laughed and said, 'baby needs new shoes!'
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While browsing online for a new phone, she exclaimed, 'baby needs new shoes!' to lighten the mood.
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After finding some great deals on clothes, he quipped, 'baby needs new shoes!' to justify his spending.
Synonyms
A fun way to explain spending with silly reasons to feel better about buying things
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal meanings of 'baby', 'needs', 'new' and 'shoes' yield an obvious surface reading (an infant requires new footwear), so some sense can be composed from the parts; however the common humorous/pragmatic use as an excuse to justify buying something (often said jokingly by an adult about themselves) is a pragmatic/idiomatic extension not directly predictable from the constituents. Because the core lexical meanings help but do not fully convey the idiomatic justificatory function, this MWE is best classified as semi-transparent.
Etymology
Baby needs new shoes may come from a simple picture: a parent sees a child with old, worn shoes and says it to explain buying something (the baby really needing new shoes). That's why people now use baby needs new shoes as a playful 'excuse' to spend money or 'justify' a purchase.