sugar baby

noun

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.

Meanings

nounsugar baby (plural sugar babies)

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.

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

    2009, Cindy M. Meston, David M. Buss, Why women have sex, page 179
    5 more examples

    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!

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

    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.

    2008, Lisa Kleypas, Sugar Daddy

    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, Brandon Wade, Seeking Arrangement, page 223

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

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

    Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer) dropped out of art school to be a full-time “sugar baby,” where she goes on dates with older men who give her money to fulfil their sexual fetishes.

    2026 April 29, Louis Staples, “Tradwives, sugar babies and OnlyFans: Euphoria’s misogyny feels like the manosphere’s wet dream”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

    Synonyms: kept man, kept woman, concubine, mistress

  2. A term of endearment; sweetheart.

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

    1926, John Steinbeck, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 198

    Synonyms: sweetie, honey, dear, sugar

Synonyms & antonyms

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

nounA term of endearment; sweetheart.

Origin

Translations

Norwegian Bokmål sugarbaby
  • sugarbabyrecipient of interest from a sugar daddy or sugar mama
Spanish mantenido
  • mantenidorecipient of interest from a sugar daddy or sugar mama
Vietnamese sugar baby, bé đường
  • sugar babyrecipient of interest from a sugar daddy or sugar mama
  • bé đườngrecipient of interest from a sugar daddy or sugar mama
Cite this entry
APA

sugar baby. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sugar%20baby

MLA

“sugar baby.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sugar%20baby. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sugar baby,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sugar%20baby.

Source: sugar baby on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.