Is one a sub group of the other? Does either term include toddlers?
I’m having this discussion with someone and we both thought the opposite from eachother and we were quite sure our way of thinking was the common understanding.
Is one a sub group of the other? Does either term include toddlers?
I’m having this discussion with someone and we both thought the opposite from eachother and we were quite sure our way of thinking was the common understanding.
“Baby” comes from middle English.
“Infant” comes from French.
Like a lot of English there are two words for it due to the long French rule over England.
See also*
Blossom vs Flower
Fowl vs Poultry
And many more.
They are effectively synonymous
Often the French word ends up having more fancy, haughty, or high-class connotation and the the Anglo Saxon word ends up having more of a working person’s connotation, since the Normans were the rulers of England and the Anglo Saxons their subjects. One popular example is that words like “Chicken”, “Cow”, “Sheep”, “Pig” are the word for the animal, whereas the French “Beef”, “Poultry”, “Mutton”, “Pork” are the words for their meat because the English were the farmers raising the animals but the French overlords were the ones eating their meat.
But because the words have been there for so long they’ve drifted into slightly different meanings, allowing more subtle communication.
Blossom: the petals of a flower
Flower: the whole flower (petals, stamen, stem, leaves)
Fowl: birds you can eat, including alive in the wild
Poultry: chicken, as farm animals, meat, or eggs
Wrong.
Blossom - noun a flower or a mass of flowers, especially on a tree or bush. “tiny white blossoms”
Hang your head in shame.