babe in arms
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A very young or innocent person
Literally: a baby being held in one's arms
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The bride's younger sister, herself no babe - in - arms, confronted the terrified groom and demanded an offering before he and his party would be admitted to the house.
It was a very nasty offence in view of the fact there was a babe in arms involved.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “babe in arms” mean?
A very young or innocent person Literally: a baby being held in one's arms
Is “babe in arms” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.