sugar baby

From sugar +‎ baby.

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sugar baby (plural sugar babies)

1. The younger recipient (usually female or a bottom) of interest from a sugar daddy or sugar mama, especially financial and romantic in an intergenerational relationship.

   Synonyms: kept man, kept woman, concubine, mistress

   • 2005, Aaron Peckham, Urban dictionary: fularious street slang defined, page 300:

     If you're a rich man and your woman pays attention to you only when she wants your credit card, you're bein' played by a sugar baby!

   • 2008, Lisa Kleypas, Sugar Daddy‎^[1]:

     Sugar daddies prefer to think of it as a special friendship in which they provide gifts and help to a deserving young woman. And sugar babies convince themselves that a nice boyfriend should want to help out with his girlfriend, and in return she would naturally want to show her appreciation by spending time with him.

   • 2009, Brandon Wade, Seeking Arrangement, page 223:

     Diary of a Sugar Baby by American Geisha Day One After eight years of post-divorce dating trauma, I'd had enough, and decided to search for a Sugar Daddy on SeekingArrangement.com.

   • 2009, Cindy M. Meston, David M. Buss, Why women have sex, page 179:

     There is even a Web site devoted to rating the quality of sugar daddy / sugar baby Web sites!

   • 2025 July 29, Jesse McKinley, quoting Srushti Upadhyay, “David Geffen’s Divorce Gives New Meaning to Hypergamy”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     “Some sugar babies will refer to themselves as not sugar babies, but that they’re just dating hypergamously,” Ms. Upadhyay said.

2. A term of endearment; sweetheart.

   Synonyms: sweetie, honey, dear, sugar

   • 1926, John Steinbeck, The Saturday Evening Post‎^[3], volume 198:

     "Sugar baby, daddy not only shot you — he tried to kill you!" A look of sweet ecstasy came into the wounded lady's eyes.

• sugaring