different between baby vs bane

English

Etymology

From Middle English baby, babie (“baby”), a diminutive form of babe (“babe, baby”), equivalent to babe +? -y/-ie (“endearing and diminutive suffix”). Perhaps ultimately imitative of baby talk (compare babble).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: b?'b?, IPA^(key): /?be?bi/
• Rhymes: -e?bi

Noun

baby (plural babies)

1. A very young human, particularly from birth to a couple of years old or until walking is fully mastered.
2. Any very young animal, especially a vertebrate; many species have specific names for their babies, such as kittens for the babies of cats, puppies for the babies of dogs, and chicks for the babies of birds. See Category:Baby animals for more.
3. Unborn young; a fetus.

4. A person who is immature, infantile or feeble.

5. A person who is new to or inexperienced in something.

6. The lastborn of a family; the youngest sibling, irrespective of age.
7. A term of endearment used to refer to or address one's girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse.

8. (informal) A form of address to a man or a woman considered to be attractive.

9. A pet project or responsibility.
   • 1996, Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy, Folio Society 2015, p. 902:

     Sovnarkom was Lenin's baby, it was where he focused all his energies […].

10. An affectionate term for anything.

11. (archaic) A small image of an infant; a doll.

Synonyms

• (young human being): babe, babby, babbie, infant, see also Thesaurus:baby
• (young animal): see Thesaurus:youngling
• (immature or infantile person): big baby
• (term of endearment): love, see also Thesaurus:sweetheart

Translations

See also

• gamete, zygote, morula, blastocyst, embryo, fetus

Adjective

baby (comparative babier or babyer, superlative babiest or babyest)

1. (of vegetables, etc.) Picked when small and immature (as in baby corn, baby potatoes).
2. Newest (overall, or in some group or state), most inexperienced.
   • 1894, Marion Harland, The Royal Road, Or, Taking Him at His Word, page 136:

     Mrs. Paull held out her hand to the babyest of the quartette, as they tiptoed up to the bed. “Lift her up, please, Marie!” she said, motioning to the place enclosed by her arm. When the rosy cheek touched hers upon the pillow, she asked ...

   • 1910, Marion Harland, Marion Harland's Autobiography: The Story of a Long Life, page 408:

     That evening, we grouped about the fire in the parlor, a wide circle that left room for the babyest of the party to disport themselves upon the rug, in the glow of the grate piled with cannel coal.

   • 2006, Marion Halligan, The Apricot Colonel, Allen & Unwin (?ISBN)

     Of when I was a baby editor. Very baby, it was actually a kind of work experience, I was still at university but I knew what I wanted. With a small independent publisher, good reputation, did some marvellous books, […]

   • 2020, Hannah Abigail Clarke, The Scapegracers, Erewhon (?ISBN), page 391:

     […] party for Halloween proper? Just the four of us and some goofy, spooky kids' movies, you know? Some cute pumpkin-shaped cupcakes? I could make my dog a little costume. He could be a baby witch. The babyest Scapegracer.” I blinked.

3. (in the comparative or superlative) Like or pertaining to a baby, in size or youth; small, young.
   • 1888, Monthly Packet, page 170:

     Spider. Here let us begin at the beginning, at the babyest of books for Edith's nursery.

   • 1894, Edith E. Cuthell, Two Little Children and Ching, page 107:

     She let it drop out of her sleeve, and it was two Chings — the dearest, littlest, babyest, tiny Chings — little balls of fur! And she ran away, and daddy's father picked them up, and put them in his pockets, and brought them home, […]

   • 1908, Marion Harland, Housekeeper's Guide and Family Physician, page 98:

     Lemon-juice for ink spots: Not many weeks ago the babyest member of our household - perhaps moved by a hereditary tendency toward ink - slinging - divided the contents of an ink bottle impartially between the tiles of the bath-room floor ...

   • 1908, Mary Findlater, Jane Helen Findlater, Crossriggs, page 25:

     "There's a babier baby than Mike," she said. "But you will see her to-morrow. Aren't we rich? Come in and see Matilda - you won't find her much changed. It's so absurd to see her with all these children."

   • 1936, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Military Affairs, To Promote the National Defense by Stengthening the Air Reserve, Hearings ..., on H.R. 4348, 12241, Feb 27, April 22, 1936, page 31:

     Now, we all believe in national defense, but we also believe in peacetime activity, and my personal idea about aviation is that it is still in its absolute “babyest” type of infancy, that it is nothing even approaching what it will be even 10 years [from now].

Further reading

• 1987, Raphael Sappan, The Rhetorical-logical Classification of Semantic Changes, volume 5, page 58:

  Baby. In its attributive uses, the word has the meaning 'small, tiny'. In the following sentence it is a metonym, still preserving its relation to the original meaning: “There is a babier baby than M.” (in the entry baby of the first volume of  […]

Verb

baby (third-person singular simple present babies, present participle babying, simple past and past participle babied)

1. (transitive) To coddle; to pamper somebody like an infant.
   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, Chapter, [2]

     […] though he tried to be gruff and mature, he yielded to her and was glad to be babied.

   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, "Friction," [3]

     Then the man effected measles and stayed off the job for six weeks, babying himself at home, though he lived just round the corner from my half-built house.

2. (transitive) To tend (something) with care; to be overly attentive to (something), fuss over.
   • 1967, "Mr. Mac and His Team," Time, 31 March, 1967, [4]

     In the past 27 years, "Mr. Mac," as he is known to his 46,000 teammates, has built and babied his McDonnell Co. from nothing into a $1 billion-a-year corporation.

   • 1912, Linda Craig, interviewed by Theresa Forte, "Tree and Twig farm — a treasure chest of heirloom tomatoes," Welland Tribune, 25 May, 2012, [5]

     I have grown them for years and although some years are better than others, I have always had loads of tomatoes by not babying them, going easy on the water, and fertilizing with compost in the planting hole.

Translations

Derived terms

Pages starting with “baby”.

Related terms

• babe

See also

• child
• infant
• toddler

References

Anagrams

• Abby

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from English baby.

Noun

baby c (singular definite babyen, plural indefinite babyer)

1. A baby, an infant.
2. (slang) An attractive young female.

Inflection

Synonyms

• spædbarn

Derived terms

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English baby.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?be?bi/
• Hyphenation: ba?by

Noun

baby m (plural baby's or babies, diminutive baby'tje n)

1. baby (infant)

   Synonym: zuigeling

Derived terms

• babyboom
• babyface
• babyfoon
• babykleding
• babykleren
• babyluier
• babypoeder
• babyshampoo

Finnish

Alternative forms

• beibi

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bei?bi/, [?be?i?bi]
• IPA^(key): /?b?by/, [?b?by] (rare)

Noun

baby

1. baby (term of endearment)
2. baby (very young human)

Declension

This spelling should preferably be used in nominative only as it does not fit into any standard inflection scheme.

Synonyms

• (very young human) vauva
• (term of endearment) kulta

French

Etymology

From English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.bi/

Noun

baby m (plural babys)

1. table soccer, table football
2. baby, darling, sweetheart

Further reading

• “baby” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Interlingua

Noun

baby

1. baby

Synonyms

• bebe

Italian

Etymology

From English baby.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?be.bi/

Noun

baby m (invariable)

1. child, baby, neonate
2. a small shot of whisky
3. tripod for a film camera

Adjective

baby (invariant)

1. For use by young children
2. Very young

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bab?/

Noun

baby

1. inflection of baba:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative plural

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From English baby

Noun

baby m (definite singular babyen, indefinite plural babyer, definite plural babyene)

1. a baby

Synonyms

• spedbarn

Derived terms

• babymat
• babyolje

References

• “baby” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From English baby

Noun

baby m (definite singular babyen, indefinite plural babyar, definite plural babyane)

1. a baby

Synonyms

• spedbarn

Derived terms

• babymat
• babyolje

References

• “baby” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ba.b?/

Noun

baby f

1. inflection of baba:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative plural

Slovak

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?babi]

Noun

baby

1. inflection of baba:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative plural

Spanish

Noun

baby m (plural babys)

1. baby

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /be?n/
• Hyphenation: bane
• Rhymes: -e?n

Etymology 1

From Middle English bane, from Old English bana, from Proto-Germanic *banô (compare Old High German bano (“death”), Icelandic bani (“bane, death”)), from Proto-Indo-European *g??on-on-, from the o-grade of *g??en- (“to strike, to kill”).

Noun

bane (countable and uncountable, plural banes)

1. A cause of misery or death.

   Synonyms: affliction, curse

   Antonym: boon

   • Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe.
2. (dated) Poison, especially any of several poisonous plants.
3. (obsolete) A killer, murderer, slayer.
4. (obsolete) Destruction; death.
5. A disease of sheep.

   Synonym: rot

Derived terms

• Austrian leopard's bane (Doronicum austriacum)
• common dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium)
• dog bane (Plectranthus ornatus)
• leopard's bane (Doronicum spp. et al.)
• baneberry (Actaea spp.)
• baneful
• boon and bane
• boon or bane
• wolfsbane (Aconitum spp.)

Translations

Verb

bane (third-person singular simple present banes, present participle baning, simple past and past participle baned)

1. (transitive) To kill, especially by poison; to be the poison of.
2. (transitive) To be the bane of.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English ban (northern dialect), from Old English b?n.

Noun

bane (plural banes)

1. (chiefly Scotland) bone
   • 1686, "Lyke-Wake Dirge" as printed in The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900) p. 361:

     The fire will burn thee to the bare bane.

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

Anagrams

• Bean, Bena, bean, nabe

Danish

Etymology 1

Old Norse bani

Noun

bane

1. bane, person/thing/event that kills someone or something

Etymology 2

Noun

bane

1. track
2. trajectory

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

bane

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of banen

Japanese

Romanization

bane

1. R?maji transcription of ??

Latin

Noun

bane

1. vocative singular of banus

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish bán, from Proto-Celtic *b?nos (“white”).

Adjective

bane (plural baney, comparative baney)

1. white, blank, pallid

2. fair, blonde

3. fallow

Derived terms

Mutation

References

• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “bane”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

See also

Middle Dutch

Etymology 1

From Old Dutch *bana, from Proto-Germanic *ban?.

Noun

b?ne f

1. open field, battlefield
2. lane, track (for playing balls)
3. road, way, path

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: baan
  • Afrikaans: baan
  • ? Indonesian: ban
• Limburgish: baan

Etymology 2

From Old Dutch *bano, from Proto-Germanic *banô.

Noun

b?ne f or m

1. harm, pain

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Further reading

• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “bane (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page I
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “bane (II)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page II

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English bana, in turn from Proto-Germanic *banô.

Alternative forms

• ban, bayn, bone, beone

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ba?n(?)/

Noun

bane (plural banes)

1. murderer, slayer
2. bane, destroyer

Descendants

• English: bane
• Scots: bane, baine, bain, bayn, bone

References

• “b?ne, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

Noun

bane (plural banes)

1. Alternative form of bon

Descendants

• Scots: bane, bean, bain
• Yola: bane

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From Middle Low German bane, compare with German Bahn

Noun

bane m (definite singular banen, indefinite plural baner, definite plural banene)

1. a trajectory
2. a railway line
3. a sports field
4. a racing track
5. orbit (of a satellite, including the moon)

Synonyms

• (orbit): omløpsbane

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Old Norse bani

Noun

bane m (definite singular banen, indefinite plural baner, definite plural banene)

1. death (by murder)

Etymology 3

From Middle Low German bane, compare with German bahnen.

Verb

bane (imperative ban, present tense baner, passive banes, simple past bana or banet or bante, past participle bana or banet or bant, present participle banende)

1. to pave, as in

   bane vei for - pave the way for

References

• “bane” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

From Middle Low German bane, compare with German Bahn

Noun

bane m or f (definite singular banen or bana, indefinite plural banar or baner, definite plural banane or banene)

1. a trajectory
2. a railway line
3. a sports field
4. a racing track
5. orbit (of a satellite, including the moon)

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Old Norse bani

Noun

bane m (definite singular banen, indefinite plural banar, definite plural banane)

1. death (by murder)

Etymology 3

From Middle Low German bane

Alternative forms

• bana

Verb

bane (present tense banar, past tense bana, past participle bana, passive infinitive banast, present participle banande, imperative ban)

1. to pave, as in

   bane veg for - pave the way for

References

• “bane” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old Frisian

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *baunu, from Proto-Germanic *baun?. Cognates include Old English b?an, Old Saxon b?na and Old Dutch *b?na.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ba?ne/

Noun

b?ne f

1. bean

Descendants

• North Frisian:

  Föhr-Amrum: buan

• Saterland Frisian: Boone
• West Frisian: bean, beane, beanne

References

• Bremmer, Rolf H. (2009) An Introduction to Old Frisian: History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, ?ISBN

Portuguese

Verb

bane

1. third-person singular present indicative of banir
2. second-person singular imperative of banir

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English bane, from Old English b?n, from Proto-Germanic *bain?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ben]
• (Mid Northern Scots) IPA^(key): [bin], [bein]

Noun

bane (plural banes)

1. (anatomy) bone, limb

Derived terms

Swedish

Etymology

As a simplex noun a borrowing from Old Swedish bani, from Old Norse bani, from Proto-Germanic *banô, from Proto-Indo-European *g??on-on-, from the o-grade of *g??en- (“to strike, to kill”). Cognate to English bane, Icelandic bani.

The word can be regarded as a reborrowing from Old Swedish mediaeval literature. It is not attested in writing in the 16th and 17th centuries, but was reinforced due to its usage in the mediaeval Swedish country laws, which were in use until the 18th century. During the 17th century its usage is usually accompanied by a definition explaining the meaning. It was revived in the late 17th century due to the resurging interest in the middle ages and the Icelandic sagas, cf. other Icelandic loans from the same era, e.g. idrott, skald, dyrd. Already in SAOB (1899) it is regarded as archaic or literary and mostly used in a few set phrases.

The word survived in the compound baneman (“slayer, murderer”), which is attested from the 16th and 17th centuries, and dialectally in the southern Swedish word hönsbane (“henbane, Hyoscyamus niger”), in standard Swedish bolmört.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²b??n?/

Noun

bane c (indeclinable)

1. (archaic) cause of someone’s (violent) death; bane

Derived terms

References

• bane in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• bane in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

Anagrams

• bena

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English bane, from Old English b?n, from Proto-West Germanic *bain, from Proto-Germanic *bain?.

Noun

bane

1. bone

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN