baby, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

baby n.

1. a man.

1861		M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 347: ‘Why I’m blest,’ cried the Smasher, ‘if the old baby aint at Peter’s game, a talkin’ to nobody upon his fingers.’.
1895		S. Crane Red Badge of Courage (1964) 134: ‘My sakes!’ ses the colonel. He ses: ‘Well, well, well,’ he ses, those two babies?’ [...] ‘they deserve t’ be major generals,’ he ses.
1909		H. Green Mr. Jackson 49: Afterwards I got hep that you was a wise baby.
1919		H.C. Witwer Smile A Minute 10: I am now nothin’ less than a full fledge A No. 1 2nd lieutenant and I got these babies salutin’ me.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 209: They was having a wild party [...] with bootleg flowing like Niagara Falls, when along comes the revenue babies.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 268: That baby’s got a slick cream of millions all over him.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 204: There were plenty of big tough babies in the game.
1941		N. Davis ‘Don’t Give Your Right Name’ in Goulart (1967) 5: I pick the hard babies.
1952		H. McCoy Corruption City 129: I don’t want anybody to know we’ve nailed this baby.
1961		D. Hammett ‘A Man Named Thin’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 341: It’s getting tough the way those babies knock ’em over in broad daylight.

2. (also baby card) in cards, the jack, i.e. the ‘baby’ of the king and queen.

1887

G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 100: One of the planters bet me the wine that he could turn the ticket with the baby.

3. a woman.

1895		J.E. Howard ‘I’m Looking For A Bully’ 🎵 You may have your Babies and your colored swells.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 30: Swell fift’ Avenoo babies, they is.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 148: Say, I wish I could of heard what they said to that baby on the bench.
1920		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘The Jelly Bean’ in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 205: She’s a wild baby.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 273: What that baby did not know, in that game, wasn’t worth knowing.
1931		J.T. Farrell ‘Big Jeff’ in Short Stories (1937) 51: Big Jeff kept on pimping [...] he pimped for the black babies in the Black Belt.
1938		J. Weidman I Can Get It For You Wholesale 222: Say, that’s some bunch of babies.
1971		H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: babyn. [...] 2. a female.
1977		Daily Mirror 20 Aug. 10: She [...] very nearly managed to deliver the correct text, singing: ‘Creole baby with flashing eyes’.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 145: Meanwhile the bald-headed space babies are killin everybody in sight.

4. an object of one’s affection, usu. a person; also of animals; compare also senses 8 and 9.

1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 21: [of horses] ‘Yaw! Babies, hip!’ the Driver cried, With whistle, stamp and lash thrown wide; And on the reeling carriage passed.
1882		E.S. Ellis Huge Hunter in Beadle’s Half Dime Library XI:271 6/1: That must be a powerful strong wagon to carry such a big baby in it as that.
1891		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 14 Mar. 6/3: Frau Bodenhofer [...] had come to ascertain where her ‘Baby’ was. She, too, was locked up.
1896		H. Blossom Checkers 27: [of a racehorse] There’s the baby’ll get the dough.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 56: [They] listened to three ‘darkies’ explain, to the accompaniment of three guitars, that they find the Western Union a convenience no matter where they roam, and that they will telephone their baby, who’ll send ten or twenty maybe.
c.1910		‘O. Henry’ letter in Rolling Stones (1913) 291: When you see your baby in print don’t blame me if you find strange ear marks and brands on it.
1929		D. Runyon in Breslin Damon Runyon (1992) 220: [of horses] Never a handy / Guy like Sande / Bootin’ them babies in.
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 44: [of a horse] Look at that baby come down the stretch.
1933		R. Tate Doughman 103: There would be impossible parking—from Mr Hobson’s blue limousine to Charley Pepper’s uncertain-cylindered ‘baby’.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 106: Crap shooters first breathe on the dice, and rattle them good, and make remarks to them, such as ‘Come on, baby!’.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 83: Man, oh man, my baby’s got a one-track mind.
1962		A. La Guma Walk in the Night (1968) 43: Another man rattling the dice and saying, ‘Come, baby, make nick. Make nick’.
1979		Fantastic Four Annual 37: Hope the others got out in time, ’cause me an baby here’s about ta go.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 55: All I want to know is my baby is gonna get off Front Street in one piece.
2000		M. Collins Keepers of Truth 83: That’s no excuse to go kicking my baby.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] [of a helicopter] Been flying these babies since the eighties.
2011		IOL News (Western Cape) 12 May 🌐 The guitar is part of the permanent collection at the bob Marley Museum [...] ‘That was his baby [...] That was his weapon’.

5. a term of affection or general address between men and women; also less commonly between men and men or women and women.

1857		Paul Pry (London) 15 Aug. n.p.: Look out, or D— v— ds— n will be on to you; ta ta for the present, baby.
1879		Barman & Barmaid 12 July 3/1: In addition [he] gives ‘Baby’ a flower which costs himn a tanner.
1884		Sporting Times 8 Nov. 1/5: ‘When will you marry me as you promised, darling?’ ‘As soon as Chamberlain clears himself of the charges brought against him, baby’.
1898		F. Dumont Dumont’s Joke Book 60: She calls you ‘baby’ and you call her ‘ootsy’.
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 113: Then Puss would tell the Visitor that Baby was simply ruining his health through devotion to his Employers.
1901		A. Binstead More Gal’s Gossip 74: Cupid is a marvellous magician, as one fully realises when one overhears a callow youth address a still fascinating belle of forty [...] as ‘Baby’.
1919		C.H. Darling Jargon Book 3: Baby—A pet name.
1928		N.I. White Amer. Negro Folk-Songs 330: [reported from Auburn, AL, 1915–16] Come on, Baby, Papa ain’t mad with you.
1935		Cab Calloway [song title] Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home.
1938		D. Runyon ‘That Ever-Loving Wife of Hymie’s’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 604: Wait here with me, Baby.
1941		J.M. Cain Mildred Pierce (1985) 344: [woman to woman] Baby, I wouldn’t let that cluck buy your dinner.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 24: Hey, look, baby [...] I know you’re Capone’s old lady.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 83: [man to man] Keep talking, baby [...] You’re talking us into a hatful of dough.
1954		J. Blake letter 10 May in Joint (1972) 52: [man to man] Baby, such gloom!
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 99: [man to man] I don’t know you, baby.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 128: I ain’t that crazy, baby.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 9: [man to man] I wanted to turn you on, baby.
1965		(ref. to 1951) C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 178: The first time I heard the expression ‘baby’ used by one cat to address another was up at Warwick in 1951 [...] The term had a hip ring to it, a real colored ring [...] It was like saying ‘Man, look at me, I’ve got masculinity to spare.’ It was like saying at the same time to the world, ‘I’m one of the hippest cats, one of the most uninhibited cats on the scene.’.
1967		S. Harris Hellhole 121: There was a strength and assurance in the way colored people used ‘baby’ (they’d coined it and felt it belonged to them).
1969		N. Spinrad Bug Jack Barron 26: Make nice, Jack, baby, he warned himself grimly.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 37: When am I going to see you, baby?
1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 163: [man to man] This is just part of the uniform baby.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 27: [man to man] Gimme five on d’ soul side. Lay some skin on me, baby!
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Wanted’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] (addressing a canary) Hello baby, have you missed me?
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 113: That’s what we’re here for, baby!
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 268: It wasn’t one of Nifty’s sweetest rides, I can tell you that, baby.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 18: Guy! Darling! Oh, God, I can’t believe it . . . baby!
2000		Guardian Guide 1–6 Jan. 9: We’ve come a long way, baby.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 197: ‘And you’ve got cojones [...] calling a Negro man “baby”’.

6. as a container.

(a) a bottle or glass of liquor; thus kiss the baby, to take a drink; the baby is born, there is enough money to buy a bottle.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 11/1: Then, with a sigh, the bard set out once more upon the baby hunt.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 293: It was great, that pint, too, but the first was the ever-memorable baby.
1905		E.W. Hornung A Thief in the Night (1992) 315: It looks to me like the only bottle, the last of its case [...] This baby is worth nursing.
1986		S. King It (1987) 85: Call an ambulance, my ass. He drinks this baby and I’ll be calling Parker and Waters in Swedholm for their funeral hack.
1994		(con. 1980s) G. Byrne Pictures in my Head 117: And the Guinness! What a drink. Two o’ those babies and I’m singing.

(b) a small or half-sized bottle, whether of spirits or a non-alcoholic drink, orig. soda water; thus baby and nurse, a small bottle of soda water with twopennyworth of spirits.

1909		(ref. to 1870s) J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 13/2: Baby (Tavern, 1875) [...] the half-bottle (2d.) which from its small size was dubbed ‘baby’ [...] Baby and nurse (Tavern, 1876) A small bottle of soda-water and two-penny-worth of spirit in it. This is the nurse.
1920		G. Saintsbury Notes on a Cellar-Book 174: [T]he quarter-bottle, sometimes called ‘nip,’ ‘baby,’ and other pet names.

1936

H.W. Bentley ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 42: BABY. Glass of fresh milk.

7. a person, often self-referential as in this baby.

1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 186: Keep your peepers on them babies.
1919		A. Baer Two & Three 4 Nov. [synd. col.] One snooter used to make this baby sicker than a Cook’s tourist on the second day out.
1920		R. Lardner Big Town iii: So this Codd baby had give himself an introduction to my Mrs. and Kate.
1927		(con. 1918) J.W. Thomason Red Pants 87: If you think this baby will wait that long on any guy, you’re all wet.
1928		Rudolph Fisher Walls Of Jericho 29: I been haulin’ pianos; but when they starts plantin’ dynamite, this baby’s gonna start haulin’ hindparts!
1930		E. Glyn Flirt and Flapper 126: Flirt: There can be nothing left but a Sisiterhood. Flapper: Not for this baby!
1931		C.B. Yorke ‘Snowbound’ in Gangster Stories Oct. n.p.: [N]ot even Garland’s ‘persuasive’ methods could make this baby change her mind.
1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 197: What a shock it was going to be to this baby when she woke up.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 59: He’s a hefty baby.
1946		H.A. Smith Rhubarb 133: ‘I think I can convince each of you that you, too, have certain responsibilities.’ ‘Not this baby,’ spoke up Len Sickles.
1969		R. Starnes Flypaper War 154: ‘What these babies can do with edged tools is beyond belief’.

8. an object of excellence; compare sense 4.

1900		‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 21: Baby, adj. Anything nice.
1902		C.L. Cullen More Ex-Tank Tales 95: I’m bound to say it’s a baby of a maxim for prophetic truthfulness.
1908		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 15: Here’s a baby. Saw this in a paper from Cohoes yesterday.
1918		Sun (NY) 22 Sept. 7/2: But oh these babies up here. They could bite their way through a battleship.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 178: The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the concussion like a blow in the head. ‘Some baby,’ said the man behind him.
1922		B. Hecht A Thousand and One Afternoons [ebook] [S]he told me he was some baby on music.
1930		W.R. Burnett Iron Man 39: Look at that hook, George [...] that’s the baby that’ll put old Mike to sleep.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 157: Make it a classic. Say, a 1964 Ford Falcon. You don’t see many of those babies.

9. (also babe) an otherwise unnamed item or object, esp. used of automobiles, weapons and machinery; compare sense 4.

1918		S.S. Clark letter 17 Sept. in Soldier Letters (1919) 165: I understand from Carolus that you have been shifted to the Tanks [...] Be sure and learn how to get one of those babies out of the mud.
1919		H.C. Witwer Smile A Minute 278: ‘How much is this baby here?’ I says, pointin’ to the limousine.
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 196: The thing fired a .45 caliber automatic cartridge, and when I picked up a few of them they sure were brutal-looking babies.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 201: Joe Peeper flung [the dice] out of the window. ‘Them babies’ll never bother me no more.’.
1937		T. Thursday ‘Good Luck is No Good’ in Federal Agent Nov. 🌐 The jack is brought in with an armored car and I don’t want no part of them babies.
1942		R. Chandler High Window 90: I hear how in Noo York they got elevators that just whiz [...] Must take a good man to run them fast babies.
1949		A.I. Bezzerides Thieves’ Market 108: We’ll unload that baby right in the street.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 296: Set up the TBX and get in contact with this baby.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 242: I pity the poor fucker who messes with this baby.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 55: I stopped by the office and picked up the file. What I don’t remember, this baby does.
1983		S. King Christine 482: A pair of crutches with wet snow on them can turn into ice-skates. ‘You really operate those babies,’ Arnie said.
1988		R. Doyle Commitments 68: Now, Dean, make that baby [i.e. saxophone] squeal.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 331: We can get you guys some help and walk those babies right on out of here.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 76: These babies [i.e. teeth] are right out in front. He didn’t know they were gone.
2003		T. Dorsey Stingray Shuffle 311: These silver babies [i.e. model trains] are the train we’re walking towards.
2004		B. Parris Making of a Legionnaire 167: [of a parachute] No other marks or signatures. This babe had obviously not passed through any checks .
2008		D.R. Pollock ‘Pills’ in Knockemstiff 53: ‘[T]hese babies [i.e. amphetamines] will get us clar to goddam San Francisco’.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘[He] taught her the art of the blow job [...] on the rides home. Hope you enjoyed our sloppy seconds’.

10. one’s special interest or responsibility, usu. with the possessive pronoun, e.g. it’s my baby.

1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 44: Zannie promised me that baby—it’s mine.
1937		W.M. Raine Cool Customer 263: Look here, young fellow. Ferrill is my baby. I know you are going to check up on him. That’s all right, but you are to come to me with anything you find out.
1947		‘F. Bonnamy’ Self Portrait of Murder (1951) 183: I’m glad this mess is your baby, Prof.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 196: ‘There’s our baby.’ Dix saw a monumentally impressive facade [...] blazing with light.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 133: Hey, Max, this ain’t my baby.
1965		C. Himes Cotton Comes to Harlem (1967) 65: That’s Homicide’s baby. We got nothing on O’Hara.
1976		Jenkins & Shrake Limo 72: [of a TV show] ‘It’s your baby, Jack. You rock it,’ I said.
1984		W. Ammon et al. Working Lives 83: Okay [...] It’s your baby. I’ll go along with you.
1995		D. Lodge Therapy (1996) 97: I can’t believe that they would turn the whole show over to another writer [...] It’s my baby.
1999		Indep. Rev. 9 Oct. 20: I’m founder of Mobo, so this is my baby.
2000		Hip-Hop Connection Jan. 85: I actually wanted a first-time director, ’cos this is my baby.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 57: ‘So this is independent of the current government?’ ‘No, it’s the PM’s baby’.

11. (US) an attractive young woman.

1936		W.R. Burnett King Cole 250: Gregg turned and winked characteristically. ‘I want to get my strength back quick so I can teach this baby here some new tricks.’ The nurse smiled calmly and bent down to smooth out Gregg’s pillow.
1942		W.R. Burnett Quick Brown Fox 219: ‘[D]on’t let Brant get a slant at her or you’ll lose her. He likes them long-legged, blonde babies’.
1953		‘John Monahan’ [W.R. Burnett] Big Stan 114: ‘So the baby was wiser than I thought. I knew she was wise, but I didn’t know she was a mind reader’.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 77: Yeow, if you want some scabby bag. I’m talking about a baby! Only nineteen. Looks like a college girl. White as plaster. Purely blond. Pud on her like a peach.

12. (US Und.) a prostitute’s client.

1958

Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 39: She had a small minute of indecision when he brought the first hundred-dollar baby to [...] meet her.

13. (US gay) an under-age/teenage boy.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 44: any boy under the age of consent [...] baby (known SF, late ’60s: ‘Lookit that sweet hippy baby’).
1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐.

14. (drugs) marijuana [as a term of affection for the drug].

1960		T. Southern ‘Red-dirt Marijuana’ in Southern (1973) 11: He call it lotta things. He call it ‘baby’ too. Hee-hee.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).

15. (N.Z. prison) a new prisoner or prison officer.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 10/2: baby n. 1 an inmate in prison for the first time. 2 an prison officer new to the prison or recently completed his or her training.

16. (UK black) a very young gangster.

2011

G. Knight Hood Rat 110: Tinies and Babies, twelve-year-old wannabe gangsters [...] who’d splinter their own foot bones before they hit someone.

17. (US prison) a young, passive homosexual, thus a stronger prisoner’s ‘girlfriend’.

2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] If you were a ‘baby,’ a bitch, if you wouldn’t or couldn’t fight, Zuniga or the others would rent you out.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The San Diego Zoo’ in Broken 160: If anyone except Lee tried to make me his baby, Lee beat him up.

In derivatives

baby-o (n.) [-o sfx (1)]

a general term of address, usu. to a woman.

1957		C. Himes Imabelle 118: Baby-o. I got news for you.
1965		C. Himes Rage in Harlem (1969) 119: [as 1957].

In phrases

hot baby (n.) [hot adj. (7)/hot adj. (1a)]

1. (US campus, also warm-baby) a student who excels in a certain subject.

1900

E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 42: hot-baby, n. One very good in certain things, as ‘He is a hot-baby in Greek’. [Ibid.] 69: warm-baby, n. One very good in certain things.

2. any person who excels in something.

1897		Ade Pink Marsh (1963) 165: ’Ey ’s on’y one hot baby, misteh, an’ ’at’s Misteh Peteh Jackson.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 108: She began to turn the Old Family Residence upside down and get it stocked up, just like a Club, for the Hot Babies from the Metropolis.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 163: I’m the Hot Baby of Sunset Lake; and that ain’t any bellboy’s dream.

3. (US campus) a promiscuous person, a sexually eager woman; also attrib.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 42: hot-baby, n. One inclined to be fast.
1905		‘People ex rel Churchill v. Greene’N.Y. Court Appeals. Records and Briefs 578: She also asked us to go upstairs with her for a good time, saying that she was a hot baby, and could just eat a good stiff prick.
c.1915		in P. Smith Letter from My Father (1978) 53: My God! what a hot baby she was!
1922		T. Beer Fair Rewards 177: She’s a hot baby, she is! Actors!
1931		C. Wells Best Amer. Mystery Stories I 143: Say, May certainly can write a hot-baby letter, all right, believe me!
1933		J. Conroy Disinherited 198: Boy, I met up with a hot baby!
1947		C.W. Grafton My Name is Christopher Nagel 42: Yeah, she’s a hot baby all right. Boy, is she a hot baby!

In exclamations

baby!

(US) used as an intensifier.

1928

Briggs That Guiltiest Feeling 31 Oct. [synd. cartoon] I’ll sock that old pill into th’ nex’ county! Baby!

SE in slang uses

In compounds

baby-ass (adj.) [-ass sfx]

(US black) childish.

1992

J. Mowry Way Past Cool 48: Yo. Marcus-homey [...] You be okay, so stop all that baby-ass shit.

baby batter (n.)

see batter n.¹ (3)

baby-blues (n.) [SE baby-blue, a light shade of blue, often associated with a baby’s eyes; the implication is of candour and innocence]

1. (orig. US, also baby-blue eyes, icy-blues) human eyes, irrespective of their actual colour.

1917		Hearst’s Mag. 31-2 440: Fix your baby blues on the little ball and watch me close.
1925		Courier-Jrnl (Louisville, KY) 13 Sept. 4:5/4: The young man said, ‘Here’s staring right in your baby-blues without even belching’.
1939		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 17 Nov. [synd. col.] ‘Did I do something wrong, officer?’ she baby-blue-eyed him.
1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 291: You see that hick over there with the big shoulders and the ugly face? Well, keep your baby-blue eyes on him.
[1947		G. Kersh Prelude to a Certain Midnight Bk I Ch. ii: Those bright brown eyes that used to be so steady and candid against the baby-blue whites].
1977		P. Hamill Flesh and Blood (1978) 15: I flash the baby blues, all right. I give them the blondie boy look.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 85: As if he was hoping that regular blasts from his icy blues would prompt some spur-of-the-moment afternoon lushness to come into his arms.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 23: Out poked Candy’s spunsugar wighat, baby blues agog.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 8: She didn’t say anything, just looked me up and down and blinked those big baby blues.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 306: Ted nods gently, the baby blues fixed on me.
2011		F. Bill ‘Beautiful Even in Death’ in Crimes in Southern Indiana [ebook] He looked into Fenton’s tired baby blues.

2. (US) a police officer [play on blues n.² (1)].

1957

Laurents & Sondheim West Side Story II i: Play it big with the baby blues.

baby bonus (n.)

(Aus./Can.) a family allowance.

1951		E. Pendell Population on the Loose 170: A flat-rate baby bonus, then, has its greatest influence at the bottom of the income scale.
1967		(con. 1944) B. Fraser Search for Identity 21: John Bracken said [...] that the family allowance, already known as the Baby Bonus, had ‘all the earmarks of a political bribe’.
1972		Can. Parliamentary Debates 2 1460/1: If the minister is going to take away the baby bonus he better pass a law requiring husbands to give allowances to their wives.
1988		M.N. Philip Harriet’s Daughter 97: I explained about Mrs Blewchamp, the baby bonus cheques and how my mother had refused to give me any of it.
1995		Pierson & Cohen Can. Women’s Issues 50: ‘Hands Off the Family Allowance’ [...] The $220,000,000 Baby Bonus increase we were all expecting has fallen victim to the government’s ‘anti- inflation program’.
2001		News Weekly (Aus.) 17 Nov. n.p.: Of course, there was criticism galore of Howard’s ‘baby bonus’ policy but this was more to do with it being too paltry to convince women to stay at home.
2002		(con. 1944) Canadian Economy Online 🌐 The family allowance was Canada’s first universal welfare program. Widely called the ‘baby bonus’, the Family Allowance Act of 1944 began a monthly payment to Canadian families with children, regardless of income.

baby booking (n.)

(US) juvenile detention.

2006

Burns & Price ‘Home Rooms’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 3 [TV script] The van for baby booking just left.

baby bouillon (n.)

see baby gravy

baby buggy (n.) [play on SE]

(US gay) a convertible sports car.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐.

baby bumper (n.) [bump v.¹ (1a)]

(US) a child molester.

1992

R. Price Clockers 514: I shipped him to Protective [...] there’s nothing up there but snitches, baby bumpers [etc.].

baby bumpers (n.) [SE bumper, a railway buffer]

the female breasts.

1968		in DARE.
1998		Allen Rolf ‘How I Met the Saviour’ 🌐 I could tell Mabel’s perfume and braless baby bumpers were having their effect. The Saviour looked down and blushed.

baby buster (n.) [on analogy of the boom and bust of economic jargon]

one who was born in the decade 1965–1975, i.e. the period after the baby boom that followed WWII, thus one born during a baby bust.

1987		Wall Street Journal 12 Nov. 41: Now get ready for the baby busters. They’re the consumers born after the baby boom subsided – from about 1965 to 1974 – and they’re shaping up to be the next hot demographic group.
1993		Lerner et al. Dict. of Today’s Words.

baby button (n.) [the umbilical cord, connecting baby to mother]

the navel.

1968

in DARE.

babycakes (n.) (also cakes, cakie) [SE cake; so intimate a friend is ‘good enough to eat’] (US)

1. a (pretty) young woman or handsome man.

1927		F.M. Thrasher Gang 340: A handsome boy [...] Cakie.
1964		Current Sl. (1967) I:4 3/1: Baby cakes, n. An attractive boy or girl.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 93: His lecher’s rollcall of ‘sweetmeat’ and ‘baby cakes’.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 181: Check on some speed for me OK, babycakes?

2. a term of affection between friends.

1956		Harriet Daimler’ Darling n.p.: ‘Honestly, honey, you make me want to go straight.’ ‘Maybe we should try.’ ‘Babycakes, set a date’.
1962		Billboard 20 Oct. 14: Hits of the World [...] Baby Cakes Dee Dee Sharp.
1967		J.D. Hunter One of Us Works for Them 168: Disloyalty starts at home, baby cakes, don’t forget that.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 2: baby cakes – A name for someone you truly dig, but mostly your main chick or girl. You can shorten it to Cakes or Cakie and it means the same.
1979		B. Gutcheon New Girls (1982) 271: Fat chance, babycakes.
1983		R. Price Breaks 77: I tell you, babycakes, you don’t know what work is.
1998		(con. 1960s) G. Washington Blood Brothers 14: I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. OK baby-cakes?
2000		Donni’s boyfriend at RateMyPicture.com 🌐 Hey cakes... you’re sssssoooooo boodiful! :) i gave you an 11 :P bye bye now.
2014		B. Koeler ‘Be My Alibi’ in ThugLit Sept. [ebook] And believe me, baby cakes, I'm about to hand you a fireproof cover.

baby card (n.)

see sense 2

baby-catcher (n.) (US)

1. a midwife.

1937		M. Sandoz Slogum 40: Soon Gulla Slogum was baby-catcher for all the settlers, going from soddy to dugout, in any weather .
1949		Sat. Eve. Post 221 37/3: In forty years a baby catcher acquires a lot o’ namesakes [...] Guess how many babies this good right hand has reddened their cabooses?
1965–70		in DARE.
1973		J. Moyer Be a Healthy Mother 89: Dr. March Banks, Anaheim, California, another M.D. who delivers naturally, calls himself ‘a baby catcher’.
2002		P. Vincent [bk title] Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife.

2. a doctor.

1965–70

in DARE.

baby child (n.) (US black)

1. a baby; a child.

1927		R.E. Kennedy Gritny People 14: I’m knowin’ Miss Mimi ever since she was a baby-chile [DARE].
1996–2000		(con. 1940s) Deuce Ofay Productions ‘The Jive Bible’ at JiveOn.com 🌐.

2. a younger, less respected or less experienced individual.

1996–2000

Deuce Ofay Productions ‘The Jive Bible’ at JiveOn.com 🌐.

3. an immature person.

1996–2000

Deuce Ofay Productions ‘The Jive Bible’ at JiveOn.com 🌐.

baby chute (n.)

the vagina.

2000		sex.philly2nite.com 🌐 Aunt Juanita lay on the bed with her legs up on shiny metal stirrups with a light blue sheet covering her baby chute.
2002		iVillage 🌐 When that baby passes down the vaginal canal, what once was a pleasure center is now a baby chute, and you may never think about it the same way again.

baby-doll (n.) [doll n.¹ (5)]

1. (US) a young woman, esp. when attractive.

1913		H. Green ‘Troubles of Two Girls’ in S.F. Chron. 8 June 31/1: Ain’t she the thoughtful baby doll?
1917		Dooley & Nelson ‘The Darktown Strutters’ Ball’ 🎵 We’ll meet some of our high-toned neighbors, An exhibition of the ‘Baby Dolls,’ And each one will do their best, Just to outclass all the rest.
1927		S. Graham N.Y. Nights 89: [The] large ornate dolls which indulgent New Yorker male likes to buy for his lady friend. He gives his ‘baby’ a baby, his ‘cutie’ a cutie, his ‘baby-doll’ a baby-doll.
1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 67: After each rebuff I vow, ‘I’ll get you yet, French Baby Doll, you damned Teaser, I’ll get you yet ...’.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act I: You dumb baby dolls gimme a pain.
1947		(con. 1942) J.H. Burns Gallery (1948) 199: So I left my baby doll in Algiers for this.
1959		W. Brown Teen-Age Mafia 36: What about this baby doll of yours? Are you hauling her along?

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1950		J.T. Farrell ‘Milly and the Porker’ in Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 201: She’s always pullin’ that cute little baby-doll stunt on him.
1998		(con. 1960s) G. Washington Blood Brothers 13: She would move her body close to mine and give me that baby doll look, the kind of look that makes a man feel ten feet tall.

3. a direct term of address.

1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 128: A swell little broiler will call this big cheese ‘baby doll.’.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 102: The gang of boys from fourteen to twenty who loafed before Dyer’s Drug Store [...] whistling the Hoochi-Koochi and catcalling, ‘Oh, you baby-doll’ at every passing girl.
c.1930		‘Mutt & Jeff II’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 14: Never let it be said that Little Jeff wasn’t a darn good man, eh baby doll.
1954		J. Blake letter 17 Mar. in Joint (1972) 48: A band burst into dance music, live music, baby doll, not a jook.
1963		F. Kohner Affairs of Gidget 113: ‘You makin’ too much noise baby-doll,’ Ollie chuckled.
1969		N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 88: Because it’s what’s happening, babydoll.

4. a success.

1920

Ade Hand-made Fables 187: The certain Prospect of Juicy Contracts which would convert the Fliv into a Baby Doll.

5. (US) in pl., a style of high-heeled woman’s shoe.

1949

N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 123: The spectacle of somebody’s grandmother in nothing but a suit of long underwear, the high-heeled shoes once called ‘baby dolls’ and one ear-ring dangling.

6. (US gay) an attractive male.

1989–2003

R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐 baby doll: a pretty man or boy, cherished by a man as his lover.

baby factory (n.)

(US black) a woman who has had a large number of children.

2002

TheBarrel.com 🌐 Do you want an intellectual companion? A baby factory? A hiking partner? Or just lots of good, old-fashioned sex? Identifying your needs is the first, and most important, step in selecting a girl-friend.

baby-farmer (n.) [play on SE baby-farmer, one who reared orphan children, often in atrocious conditions]

an older person, usu. a woman, who prefers affairs with people much younger than themselves.

1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 11: I visualized a platoon of priest-eaters [...] ready to storm in and catch such a notorious Taig baby-farmer in bed – with a Prod!
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 35/2: C.20.

baby-father (n.) (also baby daddy, …poppa, pickney father, father pickney)

(orig. W.I.) a boyfriend, esp. the father of one’s child although not one’s legal husband.

1978		Sunday Gleaner 5 Mar. 9/2: The true relationship must be based on baby-father taking his true place in the home and among the community.
1981		Linval Thompson ‘Baby Father’ 🎵 Baby father, don’t run. Don’t hide.
1983		R. Abrahams Man-of-Words in the West Indies 68: Just for the sake of a root of cassava, / That’s why some of these young girls don’t know their pickny’ father.
1986		O. Senior ‘Ballad’ Summer Lightning 102: Yu can gwan yu is yu father pickney and he will have to deal with yu I not going worry myself no more. [...] I call her Me Ma though she really not my mother at all. She is the mother of Elsie and George [...] and Petey and Dulcie and Gabriel but their pa Mass George is my Pa too only he did have me with a lady friend he was keeping one time over at Morningside. But she did have other children from before I born and Me Ma did take me from I small and raise me up in her house.
1992		V. Headley Yardie 23: So what happ’n to the baby father?
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 babydaddy Definition: a male who fathers a young child but is not married to the mother. Example: I gonna have to send my babydaddy to court for child support.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 56: White America doesn’t yet have an equivalent of this simple piece of kinship terminology, baby momma, baby poppa.
2001		Indep. Rev. 8 Mar. 7: Perhaps the ‘baby father’ role adopted by some Afro-Caribbean men seems to strike the right balance.
2002		Teen Lingo: The Source for Youth Ministry 🌐 baby daddy a male, often a boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend. Most often means the father of, or someone who provides for, a female’s child.
2006		Ace & Invisible 1xtra [BBC radio] If your baby father doesn’t pay child support it’s almost impossible to look after your children.
2012		M.C. Funk ‘Spill Site’ in ThugLit Sept./Oct. [ebook] [A]n endless course of scumbag baby daddies.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 112: You my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s social worker’s babyfather’s friend’s bartender!

baby-fetcher (n.)

the penis.

1914		T.S. Eliot ‘Fragments’ Inventions of the March Hare in Ricks (1996) 314: There was a jolly tinker came across the sea / With his four and twenty inches hanging to his knee / Chorus With his long-pronged hongpronged / Underhanded babyfetcher / Hanging to his knee.
1964		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 30: Mother-fucking baby-fetcher / Hanging to his knees.
2000		C. Hackenberry Friends 81: My baby-fetcher was as hard and as long as a rake handle.

baby fluid (n.)

(US) semen.

c.1935

‘Betty Co-Ed’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 57: I’m going to unload about a barrell [sic] of baby fluid.

baby gravy (n.) (also baby bouillon) [SE gravy/gravy n. (1b)]

semen.

1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: baby gravy euph. Semen; smegma. Also baby bouillon.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 83: He didn’t mind as long as the slags didn’t throw up when the baby gravy slimed their epiglottis.
2003		Ben ‘Bad Wank Day’ on FunnyDaze.co.uk 🌐 The first wad of population paste erupted from my volcanic cock and shot across the room. [...] More baby gravy spewed out, again missing my wank sock and covering my clean bed sheets.

baby jesus (n.)

see separate entry.

baby juice (n.)

semen.

c.1904		A. Crowley Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 33: In vain I lubricated the threshold of the sanctuary with my young and semi-liquid baby-juice.
1975		J. Roe Same Old Grind 159: ’But in any case, it’s the old prod with the baby juice that makes the difference’.

baby-kisser (n.) [the campaigning politician’s propensity to believe that the babies encountered enjoy being kissed by a total stranger]

(US) a politician.

1908		Columbia College 1908 Class Book n.p.: In order that during the lull between elections he may not lose his art as a baby-kisser, we give him this rag doll, upon which to practise.
1920		Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 14 322: It is hard to see how the popular spell-binder, hand-shaker, back-slapper or baby-kisser would get to Moscow as frequently as he gets to Washington.
1932		Vanity Fair 37:4 9: You select the plumber, the Brother Elk, the glad-hander, the Methodist, the baby-kisser, and the froth-blower.
1944		R. Pesotta Breasd upon the Waters (1987) 24: There one heard frequent uncomplimentary allusions to Governor Rolph, ‘rosy-cheeked baby kisser,’ who obviously was no friend of the poor.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Life 13 Nov. 30/2: An opponent who is an old-fashioned political baby-kisser.
1965		J.W. Ehrlich Life in My Hands 343: My Democratic sponsors were still full of glorious plans for my future as a baby-kisser, hand-shaker, chicken-muncher and statesman.
1970		J.A. Garraty Woodrow Wilson 57: He was not by nature a ‘handshaker,’ or a ‘baby-kisser’.
1986		R.S. Wheeler Sam Hook 135: I was always a pretty good politician, and that kept me in office, but now this here job was asking me to be something more than a baby-kisser.
1996		M. Frei Italy 216: Berlusconi puts even the most skilful baby-kisser and flesh- presser to shame with his startling ability to woo the voters.
2002		N.C. Unger History News Service 🌐 The presidential election of 1912, for example, was not [...] a personality contest between former president Theodore Roosevelt, baby-kisser and back slapper, and New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, cool intellectual.
2012		D. Miller Blue Like Jazz 96: [of a clergyman] I was a smiler, a hand-shaker, a baby-kisser, a speech- giver. [...] I used clichés like a bad novelist.

baby-maker (n.) [the procreative function of the organ]

1. (also lady-maker) the penis.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
a.1952		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 32: He came to America / To fiddle, fuck and dance / With his long, lean liver, kidney-wash and baby-maker / Hanging to his knees!
1953		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 254: There was an old lady at the age of sixty-three. / She said, ‘Please, sonny, won’t you stick it into me, / With your long-tailed Studebaker, asshole-belly-shaker, / Hi-ho lady-maker hangin’ to your knee.’.

2. the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. a sexually powerful man.

1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 107: This is Pimping Sam, the world’s wonder, / long-dick buck-bender, all-night grinder, womb-finder, / sheet-shaker, baby-maker, and money-taker.
1969		H. Rap Brown Die Nigger Die! 27: Man, you must don’t know who I am. / I’m sweet peeter jeeter the womb beater / The baby maker the cradle shaker / The deerslayer the buckbinder the women finder.

4. (S.Afr. gay) a heterosexual.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 190: heterosexual [...] BM (Cape Town gay sl, fr baby maker or bloody man).
2003		K. Cage Gayle.

baby-mother (n.) (also baby mama, baby mamma, baby momma, baby moms, baby mum)

(orig. UK black) a girlfriend, spec. the woman who has one’s baby but with whom one may not actually live.

1980		M. Thelwell Harder They Come 299: Army shoot ’im baby maddah.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 171: ‘Babymamma.’ You see, that was the bird they had babies with, or at least gave babies to.
1994		M. Montague Dread Culture 117: Chuckie’s babymadda – she tell di police all sort of lies pon me.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 56: The only cool female right now on my team is my baby momma.
2003		Simon & Burns ‘Hot Shots’ Wire ser. 2 ep. 3 [TV script] Man need to see his baby-mama. Need to see his child too.
2004		Guardian G2 20 Sept. 16: He and his babymother die together ’cause they shot up his car.
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 67: Red Eyes was buried six days later [...] All five of his baby mothers were there.
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 376: The clientele’s all baby mamas and families visiting the prison.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 7: Demands to make illicit calls [...] to ‘my man on the outs’, to mommas and babymommas.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 237: You can’t let the [...] baby mamas and the strung-out junkies get to you.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebook] Ch. 20: The letter [...] is from my baby momma and at that moment things just got worse. It was a court order to pay child support.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] Laughing with his workers about the whole incident with KG and his baby moms.
2015		J. Stahl OG Dad 15: Forgive me, I’m not going to say Baby Mama; it reminds me of pinstriped, barely post-pube Hollyqwood agents who greet each other with ‘Whassup, dawg?’.
2015		J. Spades ‘Anytime I Want’ 🎵 And your baby mother, she’s in here / She’s telling my niggas she models, yo.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 68: Tying up mandem’s babymums and raping them n all sorts.

baby paste (n.)

(US gay) semen.

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐 baby paste: semen.

baby plaster (n.)

(US) semen.

1905–07

‘Marry Had a Pair of Drawers’ Bawdy N.Y. State MS. n.p.: And that awful load of baby plaster, / Was put up there to stay.

baby poppa (n.)

see baby-father

baby-rape (n.)

see separate entry.

baby-raper (n.)

see separate entry.

baby’s arm (n.) [the supposed resemblance]

the penis, esp. when large.

[1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 1: Colored men are built abnormally large (‘Their wangs look like a baby’s arm with an apple in its fist.’)].
1994		rec.sport.basketball.college 14 June 🌐 The guy is renowned throughout New Mexico city and the state for his enormus slong [sic] and the spaffing potential of his long john sliver [sic] [...] It was like a baby's arm holding an apple.
1999		Guardian G2 24 June 2: I’d just seen the baby’s arm hanging between his legs.

baby’s head (n.) [the supposed resemblance; presumably that of the smooth suet cover rather than the meat and gravy it contains]

steak and kidney pudding; a suet dumpling.

1900		E.W. Rogers [perf. Harry Freeman] ‘Four-p'ny-a'p'ny Banquet’ 🎵 I wolfed the soup and ‘baby’s head’.
1913		Nottingham Eve. Post 22 Sept. 3/4: His young lady friend [...] delights in a beefsteak pudding. This, from its size and roundness, she calls a ‘baby’s head’.
1923		M. Garahan Stiffs 99: Cawfee, baby’s head small, boiled, no veg, two thick ’uns.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 13: Baby’s Head: Meat Pudding. Suggested by its round, smooth appearance.
1928		Bath Chron. 4 Aug. 25/6: A waitress contributed: [...] ‘baby’s head and a buster,’ steak and kidney pudding and mashed potatoes.
1941		Yorks. Post 3 May 4/5: Canteen slang [...] from the Army & RAF [...] baby’s head — steak and kidney pudding.
1950		W. Granville Sea Slang 23: Baby’s head. A meat pudding (Lower deck) It is round and bald.
2005		(ref. to c.1930) letter in Guardian 19 May 27/3: In London’s docklands between the wars, a standard cafe order was ‘baby’s head twice.’ The first course was a lump of suet with gravy, the second a lump of suet with custard.

babysit (v.)

see separate entry.

babysitter (n.)

see separate entry.

baby-skull (n.) [the supposed resemblance]

(US campus) an apple dumpling.

1900

E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 21: baby-skull, n. Apple dumpling.

baby’s leg (n.) [the supposed resemblance]

meat loaf, jam-roly-poly.

1943		M. Harrison Reported Safe Arrival in DSUE (1984) .
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 35/2: late C.19–20.

baby-snatcher (n.) [ironic use of SE baby-snatcher, a kidnapper]

(US) an obstetrician.

1925

S. Lewis Arrowsmith 127: He was going to be an obstetrician—or, as the medical students called it technically, a ‘baby-snatcher’.

baby-snatching (n.)

of either sex, marrying or having an affair with someone much younger than oneself; thus baby-snatcher, one who marries a noticeably younger partner.

1927		in W.E. Collinson Contemp. Eng.
1979		Maledicta III:2 221: No gay, not even my expert who described himself as frankly a baby-snatching, cradle-robbing DOM (dirty old man) would use or necessarily know all these words.

In phrases

baby chick farm (n.) [pun on SE chick/chick n.¹ (3) + SE farm]

(US black) ‘the locations or towns where the girls look fine from a young age on’ (Durst, The Jives of Dr Hepcat, 1953).

1953

L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 9: Honey, my ticker jumps off time whenever you cruise on deck, because your togs naturally climbs your frame, and your map is the road of paradise. Exqueeze me but what baby chick farm are you from?

baby in the boat (n.)

the clitoris; thus kiss the baby in the boat, to perform cunnilingus.

2000

Sex-Lexis 🌐.

baby in the bushes (n.) [such a baby is trad. conceived and/or delivered in the bushes]

(US) an illegitimate child.

1970

F. Tarpley Blinky 220: Baby in the bushes [...] Child in the bushes [DARE].

baby’s done it (n.) [a pun on number two n. (1)]

(bingo) the number two.

2002

www.ildado.com 🌐 Bingo Nicknames [...] 2... Baby’s done it.

baby’s public house (n.)

the female breasts.

1884		Referee 5 Oct. in Ware (1909) 13/2: Among them is a six-year-old baby that is suckled at the breast when it asks for baby’s public house [...] Fact!
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

deliver a baby (v.)

(US gay) to remove one’s trousers in order to expose one’s erect penis.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

have a baby (v.) [var. on have kittens under kitten n.]

to experience fright, shock or fury.

1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 113: O.K., O.K., don’t have a baby. I’m coming.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 139: My square brother’ll [...] have a baby if he saw y’all here gettin’ high.
1973		G.V. Higgins Digger’s Game (1981) 80: They go extra innings I’m gonna have a baby or something.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 537: [...] since ca. 1938.
1993		Smith & Noble Neddy (1998) 206: Tex nearly had a baby when he found out what I was up to.

hold the baby (v.) (also carry the baby)

to be left to clear up a problem, to take an unpleasant responsibility.

1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Aug. 43/2: Then I began to realise that Lord would have to carry the baby. He has signed the report, and although my beautiful, bold handwriting proved conclusively that I had written it, I argued that I was no more to blame than the pen with which I had done it.
1938		F. Durbridge Send for Paul Temple (1992) 118: Don’t you realize you’re holding the baby?
1946		‘Josephine Tey’ Miss Pym Disposes (1957) 103: ‘No one I have ever met had the same genius for leaving someone else holding the baby’.
2002		TheStreet.com 2 Oct. 🌐 Mobilcom is nearing bankruptcy after France Telecom, which holds 28.5% of its equity, decided to withhold further financing, leaving the German government holding the baby.

like a baby’s arm with an apple/orange in its fist (adj.) (also like a baby’s arm holding an apple/orange, like a baby’s arm with an apple/orange in its hand)

a phr. used to describe an extra-large penis.

1958		Lenny Bruce ‘How to relax your colored friends at parties’ [stand-up] I always heard that you guys, well, I heard you really got a big wang-on, like a baby’s arm with an apple in its fist. Could I see it? Aw, c’mon – let’s whip out that roll of tarpaper and see whatcha got there, Chonga.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 683: C.20.
1993–2003		Insults.net 🌐 Insulting, rude & funny expressions: Penis. He’s got a Dick like a baby’s arm holding an orange.
1999–2002		JSIA, JSEB, SS JonStewart.net 🌐 Girls describe sh*t, they’ll say ‘man he had a penis like a baby’s arm holding an apple!’.
2001		R. Enright ‘Fringe Reviews’ Winnipeg.cbc.ca 26 Jul. 🌐 The male part of another of the bouncers is described as being like ‘a baby’s arm with an orange in its hand’.
2002		Coops’s Jokes p.388 🌐 The man pulls down his pants to reveal the biggest dick this woman has ever seen. I mean it’s a monster... it looks like a baby’s arm with an apple in its fist.

pitch the baby card (v.)

(UK gambling) to encourage a naive gambler to lose by faked betting.

1831

Satirist (London) 20 Nov. 262/2: [T]he landlord and other men, who are privy to the robbery, and ‘pitch the baby card’ (encourage the loser by sham betting) .

put a baby on (v.) (US black)

to claim a man as one’s child’s father, even though he is not.

1994		R.I. Lerman Young Unwed Fathers 89: She said she had a young girl that was trying to put a baby on her son, so she said she fixing to take the baby and see what blood type the baby is.
2002		H. Hardee A Psycho, Snappy, Nasty, Dime-A-Dozen Chicken 🌐 When I told my man I was gonna have a baby he scratched his head, ‘Whhhh-What’ like he was all surprised and didn’t know how it jumped off. He clowned on me, told me that I was ‘straight up ill’. I was no longer a sugar voiced honey but a cracked voice pigeon trying to put a baby on him.

this won’t buy baby a new frock (also ...a new dress)

this is useless, this is pointless.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1222: [...] C.20.