Bartholomew baby

English

Alternative forms

• Bartlemy baby

Etymology

From Bartholomew (because they were sold at Bartholomew Fair in London) + baby (“doll”).

Noun

Bartholomew baby (plural Bartholomew babies)

1. (historical) A wooden doll, generally without arms or joints, painted and dressed in current fashions.
   • 1667, Roger L'Estrange (translator), The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, London: H. Herringman, The Fifth Vision of the World, p. 162,^[1]

     For He could neither Bow, nor move his Hat to any man that saluted him: No, nor so much as turn from One side to the Other; but sate as if He had been Box’d up, like a Bartlemy-Baby.

   • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, The Epistle to all Young Maidens,^[2]

     For there is no Sober, Honest, and Discreet man, but will make choice of one, that hath Gained the Reputation of a Good and Complete Servant, for his Wife, rather than one who can do nothing but Trick up her self fine, and like a Bartholomew Baby is fit for nothing else but to be looked upon.

   • 1683, John Bunyan, The Greatness of the Soul and the Unspeakableness of the Loss Thereof‎^[3], London: Richard Wilde, pages 75–76:

     […] the imagination if evil presently dresseth up this motion in that garb that best suiteth with the nature of the Sin. As if it be the Lust of Uncleanness, then is the Motion to sin drest up in all the imaginable pleasureableness of that Sin; if to Covetousness, then is the Sin drest up in the Profits and Honours that attend that Sin, and so of Theft and the like; but if the Motion be to swear, hector or the like, then is that Motion drest up with valour, and manliness: […] and thus being trimmed up like a Bartholomew Baby, it is presented to all the rest of the Powers of the Soul, where with joint consent it is admired and imbraced to the firing and inflaming all the Powers of the Soul.

   • 1863, George Daniel, “Old Father Christmas”, in Love’s Last Labour Not Lost‎^[4], London: B.M. Pickering, page 71:

     Then fine clothes were only for “Kings and Courtiers;” but now it would make “a horse break his crupper with laughing to see Joan Fiddle Faddle, whose portion amounts to two groats and two pence, decked up with ribbons and flowers as fine as a Bartholomew Baby!