- IPA: /beɪb/, enPR: bāb, X-SAMPA: [beIb]
- Rhymes: -eɪb
- ( literary or poetic ) A baby or infant; a very young human or animal .
- ( slang ) An attractive person, especially a young woman .
- She's a real babe!
- ( also babes sg. ) Darling ( term of endearment ) .
- abbe, abbé
From Middle English babe, perhaps a variant of earlier baban or representing Old English *baba ( “boy, child” ), from Proto-Germanic *babô, reduplicated variant of *ba-, *bō- ( “father, brother, close male relation” ), related to Old Frisian bobba ( “child” ), Swedish dialectal babbe ( “little boy” ), Old High German Babo ( a male forename ), see boy. Otherwise, origin obscure. Compare mama, dada, papa. Welsh baban ( “baby” ), believed by Skeat to be a mutated from maban diminutive of mab ( "son" ), is probably rather a borrowing from the English. 
babe ( plural: babes )
Explanation of babe by Wordnet Dictionary
- Babe n. [Cf. Ir. bab, baban, W. baban, maban.]
1. An infant; a young child of either sex; a baby.
2. A doll for children. Spenser.
Definition of babe by GCIDE Dictionary