baby farmer

English

Alternative forms

• baby-farmer

Noun

baby farmer (plural baby farmers)

1. One who keeps a baby farm.
   • 2006, Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, page 12:

     In that repressive atmosphere, the “baby farmer”—usually a woman—was prepared to help an unwed mother through her time of trial . . . but only for a price.

   • 2009, Barbara Bisantz Raymond, The Baby Thief:

     But in 1926 Mrs. Nat Bass of Brooklyn, New York, felt compelled to confess her deception to her husband, and the district attorney, when the baby farmer from whom she had purchased an infant was investigated for fatally starving and beating twenty-two children.

   • 2014, Gill Rossini, A History of Adoption in England and Wales 1850- 1961:

     The rudimentary care given to these abused children would deteriorate still further if the baby farmer herself became as addicted to the potion as the babies were – as was the case with Amelia Dyer, the most notorious and prolific of the known baby farmers.

References

• “baby farmer”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.