English
babe
Babe comes from Middle English babe ‘baby, infant’.
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500babe‘baby, infant’
- Englishearliest quotation 1874same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500babe‘baby, infant’
- Englishearliest quotation 1874same form
Earliest quotation: 1874, James Thomson: “Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife, A…”
The story
From Middle English babe, a variant of earlier baban, perhaps from Old English *baba (‘boy, child’), from Proto-West Germanic *babō, from Proto-Germanic *babô, reduplicated variant of *ba-, *bō- (‘father, brother, close male relation’). Welsh baban (‘baby’), believed by Skeat to be a mutation of maban, a diminutive of mab (‘son’), is probably rather a borrowing from English.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰā-
through Middle English babe ‘baby, infant’
Today it means
noun A baby or infant; a very young human or animal.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle English babe / babe