Baby

ba-by (bā′bē)

adjective
1. Diminutive or small, the smallest in a group.
My baby toe is crooked and deformed, after years of trying to fit my wide feet into tiny shoes.

Synonyms: childish, little, mini, petite, sissy, small, tiny, wee.

2. Extremely young, especially in appearance or behaviour.
Shih Tzus are such pretty baby dogs; they stay puppies forever.

Synonyms: cute, puerile, sweet.

noun
1. An extremely young human being, who is dependent on older human beings (usually their parents) for the fulfillment of all of his or her basic needs.
2. The direct consequence of sexual intercourse.
Being cute is a baby's number one basic survival technique; why else would we continue to feed them?

Synonyms: anklebiter, angelface, babe, bairn bambino, brat, bundle of joy, buttercup, button, cherub, chick, crawler, dickens, dumpling, imp, infant, innocent, kid, kiddie, lamb, little one, miniature clone of one's self, mite, moppet, newborn, nipper, nursling, papoose, preemie, progeny, small fry, sprout, squirt, sweet pea, sweetie, sweetest little thing, suckling, tad, tadpole, toddler, tyke, whippersnapper, write off, youngster.

3. The youngest in a group.
My parents kept having children, until they had a boy, and my brother is still the baby of the family.

Synonyms: brat.

4. Someone who acts like an infant or is very needy.
T.V. husbands are big babies; it's like they wouldn't survive half a day on their own.

Synonyms: faint-of-heart, gutless, high-maintenance, lily liver, shirker, weakling, wimp, wuss.

5. An exclamation, usually during sexual intercourse.
Oh, baby!

Synonyms: oh God, yes.

verb
1. To treat with great care or act like a loving parent towards.
Maybe T.V. husbands wouldn't be such wimps, if their wives didn't baby them all the time. It's like all T.V. families are based on somewhat entertaining codependent relationships.

Synonyms: cater to, cherish, coddle, dote upon, fret over, indulge, mollycoddle, overindulge, obsess about, pamper, serve, spoil.

slang
1. A term of endearment, a casual form of address for a loved one, especially in popular music.*
The number of songs that I could list as examples here is endless, so I will settle for Chris Isaak's Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing and Cat Steven's Wild World.

Synonyms: beau, better half, boyfriend, darling, dear, dearest, fiancé, flame, girlfriend, heart, honey, honeybunch, inmorato, love, love of my life, lover, object of affection, pet, prize, significant other, steady, sugar, sweet, sweetheart, sweetie, tootsie, treasure.

2. When it comes to slang, a baby can be any person or thing. I am not going to even attempt to list synonyms here.
This baby goes 185 miles per hour!
This project is my baby.

*Add this word to the end of any sentence and you will have yourself a song lyric, Baby!