babe in woods
Guileless vulnerable person
A babe in the woods is someone naive and inexperienced, vulnerable to deception or harm in unfamiliar circumstances.
The phrase evokes a small child lost in the forest—helpless and unaware of dangers: She was a babe in the woods when it came to office politics.
Usually appears with the plural woods, though babe in the wood also occurs.
- innocentFree from moral wrong
- naiveInnocently unsuspecting
- fresh facedYouthful in appearance
- lostUnable to navigate
- vulnerableOpen to attack
helpless · deer in headlights · inexperienced · newbie · new kid · greenhorn · novice · wandering · sheltered · trusting · gullible · easy mark · clueless · tender · unworldly · forest · fairy tale · Hansel
- naivetygreenhorn, newbie, tenderfoot, raw recruit, born yesterday
- suckerssucker, lollipop, Dum Dum, Tootsie Pop, all-day sucker
babe in woodsold hand
Experienced person
worldly-wise · veteran · man of the world · sophisticate · streetwise
babe in woodsMachiavelli
Political realism's founding theorist
wheeler-dealer · operator · schemer · manipulator · con artist
babe, babes, baby, babies, babyish, babyhood, wood, woods, wooded