different between baby vs imp

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

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?mp/
• Rhymes: -?mp

Etymology 1

From Middle English impen, ympen (“to plant; (figuratively) to bury; to graft; to add to, insert, put into, set in; to mend (a falcon’s feather) by attaching a new feather on to the broken stump”), from Old English impian, ?eimpian (“to graft”), from Proto-West Germanic *imp?n (“to graft”), from Vulgar Latin *imput? (“to graft”), from Ancient Greek ??????? (émphutos, “implanted; planted”), from ?????? (emphú?, “to implant”) (from ??- (en-, prefix meaning ‘in’) + ???? (phú?, “to bring forth, produce; to grow”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *b?uH- (“to appear; to become; to grow”))) + -??? (-tos).

Verb

imp (third-person singular simple present imps, present participle imping, simple past and past participle imped) (transitive)

1. (obsolete) To engraft or plant (a plant or part of one, a sapling, etc.).
2. (figuratively, archaic) To graft or implant (something other than a plant); to fix or set (something) in.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.9:

     That headlesse tyrants tronke he reard from ground, / And, having ympt the head to it agayne, / Upon his usuall beast it firmely bound, / And made it so to ride as it alive was found.

3. (falconry)
   1. To engraft (a feather) on to a broken feather in a bird's wing or tail to repair it; to engraft (feathers) on to a bird's wing or tail.
   2. To engraft (a bird, or bird's wing or tail) with feathers.
   3. (figuratively) To provide (someone or something) with wings, hence enabling them or it to soar.
      • 1633, George Herbert, "Easter Wings"

        With thee / Let me combine, / And feel this day thy victory / For, if I imp my wing on thine, / Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

4. (by extension) To add to or unite with (something) another object to lengthen it out or repair it; to eke out, enlarge, strengthen.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English impe, ympe (“tree branch; shoot, sprig; graft, scion; young tree, sapling, seedling; tree”) [and other forms], from Old English impa, impe (“shoot, sprig; graft, scion; young tree, sapling, seedling”), from impian, ?eimpian (“to graft”) (see etymology 1).

Noun

imp (plural imps)

1. (chiefly fiction and mythology) A small, mischievous sprite or a malevolent supernatural creature, somewhat comparable to a demon but smaller and less powerful, formerly regarded as the child of the devil or a demon (see sense 3.2). [from 16th c.]
   • 1771, James Beattie, The Minstrel:

     Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray / Of squabbling imps […]
2. (by extension)
   1. (often humorous) A mischievous child. [from 17th c.]

      Synonyms: brat, little dickens, scamp, urchin

      • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

        I've left my young children to look after themselves, and a more mischievous and troublesome set of young imps doesn't exist...

   2. A baby Tasmanian devil.
3. (obsolete)
   1. A young shoot of a plant, a tree, etc.; a sapling; also, a part of a plant used for grafting; a graft. [9th–18th c.]
      • 14th c., Sir Orfeo, 69:

        Þai sett hem doun al þre / Vnder a fair ympe-tre.

      • 1571, Arthur Golding, The Psalmes of David and others. With M. John Calvins Commentaries, “Epistle Dedicatorie,”^[1]

        Out of these rootes spring other impes, no lesse perniciouse than the stockes of whiche they come […]

   2. An offspring or scion, especially of a noble family; (generally) a (usually male) child; a (young) man. [15th–19th c.]
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene I.3:

        And thou most dreaded impe of highest Ioue, / Faire Venus sonne, [...] come to mine ayde [...].

      • The tender imp was weaned from the teat.

   3. (Britain, dialectal) Something added to or united with another to lengthen it out or repair it (such as an eke or small stand on which a beehive is placed, or a length of twisted hair in a fishing line).

Derived terms

• impish
• impishly
• implike
• impishness

Translations

References

Further reading

• imp on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• IPM, MIP, MPI, PIM, PMI