baby talk

noun

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Definition of baby talk

1a : the consciously imperfect or altered speech used by adults in speaking to small children

b : the syntactically imperfect speech or phonetically modified forms used by small children learning to talk

2 : oversimplified speech or writing

Examples of baby talk in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Many of the kids who had stopped speaking in baby talk or sleeping in their parents’ beds, or had started going to the bathroom themselves, have regressed. — Annie Vainshtein, SFChronicle.com, "The pandemic has shrunk children’s worlds. Experts worry it’s a ‘foreclosure on the future’," 23 Aug. 2020 Think of Lewis Carroll’s forensic interest in nonsense, Gertrude Stein’s or Beckett’s experimentation with repetition and baby talk. — Parul Sehgal, New York Times, "Wayne Koestenbaum’s Cerebral, Smutty Essays Playfully Disobey the Rules," 5 May 2020 In fact, sound designers made baby talk recordings and married the tones with a synthesizer to get R2-D2's nearly human sounds. — Aj Willingham, CNN, "A weightlifting hero, Kung Fu nuns and an adorable Christmas thief," 21 Dec. 2019 Talk to her in a normal voice (no baby talk or raised voices), but don’t overdo it because too much talk can trigger submissive urination, too. — Cathy M. Rosenthal, ExpressNews.com, "Dog’s submissive peeing a tricky thing to fix," 18 Oct. 2019 My mother catered to Noosie’s every whim, speaking to her in Arabic baby talk, and her anticipation for grandchildren became less latent. — Marlo Safi, National Review, "The American Art of Obsessing over Your Pets," 24 Aug. 2019 Sanad alternated effortlessly between babbling baby talk to his cousin Salma and cracking jokes with the adults. — Washington Post, "Your baby bump photos terrify me. Here’s why.," 2 Aug. 2019 Maybe adults don't understand baby talk, but this dad didn't let a little gibberish get in the way of a conversation with his son. — Wesli Jones, CNN, "Must-watch videos of the week," 7 June 2019 There was plenty of baby talk during Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's royal engagements today. — Erica Gonzales, Harper's BAZAAR, "Meghan Markle Talks About Her Due Date and the Sex of Her Baby," 14 Jan. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'baby talk.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.