Namby Pamby, satirical nickname given to Ambrose Philips d.1749, English writer of pastoral verse. Ambrose Philips was a versatile minor poet whose works include a few adulatory odes addressed to the young children of wealthy people. The jingling style of these odes, and their transparent intention of ingratiating Philips with the parents, aroused the scorn of the hack writer Henry Carey. His parody ‘Namby-Pamby, or a panegyric upon the new versification’ (1726) is written in an exaggerated form of baby talk which turns Philips’ name into Namby-Pamby: ‘Namby-Pamby, pilly-piss,/Rhimy-pim'd on Missy Miss’. The parody became well known, and within a short time namby-pamby had become established in the language