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colicky

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Having painful abdominal spasms, especially in infants; in poetry, evokes distress, helplessness, and bodily suffering.

Detailed Definition
Colicky is a medical adjective describing a baby who cries from colic or abdominal pain. In the poem it appears in a domestic-life example, and the term may be unfamiliar to readers who have not encountered it in a medical or parenting context.
Example
Example in poetry:
“How to calm a colicky babe at two AM” makes the adjective intimate and contemporary; The colicky infant turns night into a long refrain; A parent counts breaths beside the colicky baby; In a lyric, colicky can suggest any restless, crying hour
Additional Notes
The adjective in "How to calm a colicky babe at two AM" is a specialized medical word that may not be familiar to all readers.; Found in the poem, Harold Be Thy Name by Richard
Also Known As
Spasmodic Crampy Colic-like
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