babe in the woods
babe in the woods noun: a person who is innocent, naive, inexperienced, or helpless, especially with respect to an unfamiliar situation or environment.
Noun
babe in the woods (plural babes in the woods)
- A person who is innocent, naive, inexperienced, or helpless, especially with respect to an unfamiliar situation or environment.
- "Orde, you're all right on the river," said Newmark, with a dry little laugh, "but you're a babe in the woods at this game."1908, Stewart Edward White, chapter 11, in The Riverman
- Taylor is aware of the perception that he is the innocent, exploitable babe in the woods of the Geelong defence.2008, Jake Niall, "‘Weakest link’ no more, Harry shows he's tailor-made," The Age (Australia), 8 Sep. (retrieved 23 May 2009)
- Synonyms:
- sweet summer child, ingenue, innocent, naif
Synonyms of babe in the woods
Forms of babe in the woods
| plural | babes in the woods |
|---|---|
| alternative form | babe in the wood |
Origin of babe in the woods
From the ballad "The Children in the Wood".
Questions about babe in the woods
- What does babe in the woods mean?
- Babe in the woods means a person who is innocent, naive, inexperienced, or helpless, especially with respect to an unfamiliar situation or environment.
- What part of speech is babe in the woods?
- Babe in the woods is a noun.
- What is the plural of babe in the woods?
- The plural of babe in the woods is babes in the woods.
Words near babe in the woods in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: babe in the woods (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-babe in the woods.ogg.
Cite this entry: “babe in the woods.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/babe_in_the_woods. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.