child
See also: Child and Child.
English
A woman with two children c. 1933.
Pronunciation
- enPR: chīld, chīʹəld, IPA(key): /t͡ʃaɪld/, /ˈt͡ʃaɪ.əld/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (UK) (file) Audio (file) - Rhymes: -aɪld
Etymology 1
From Middle English child, from Old English ċild, from Proto-West Germanic *kilþ, *kelþ, from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz (“womb; fetus”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵelt- (“womb”).
Cognate with Danish kuld (“brood, litter”), Swedish kull (“brood, litter”), Icelandic kelta, kjalta (“lap”), Gothic 𐌺𐌹𐌻𐌸𐌴𐌹 (kilþei, “womb”), Sanskrit जर्त (jarta), जर्तु (jártu, “vulva”).
Alternative forms
- childe (archaic)
- chile (eye dialect, Southern US)
- (plural): childrens (intentionally incorrect, nonstandard); childs (nonstandard, rare)
Noun
child (plural children or (dialectal or archaic) childer)
- (broadly) A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority).
- Go easy on him: he is but a child.
- 2003 Powerpuff Girls: 'Twas the Fight Before Christmas (narration)
- And not just the children, teenagers too. Chuck wants a football, Kathleen a tattoo.
- 2013 June 7, Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalisation is about taxes too”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 19:
- It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.
- Synonym: kid
- Hyponyms: newborn, neonate, preteen, adolescent, tweenager, teenager, tween, teen, preadult
- (pediatrics, sometimes, in a stricter sense) A kid aged 1 to 11 years, whereas neonates are aged 0 to 1 month, infants are aged 1 month to 12 months, and adolescents are aged 12 years to 18 years.
- Regular chores can be appropriate for both children and adolescents, given age-appropriate limits on difficulty level and time on task.
- Hypernym: kid
- Coordinate terms: newborn, neonate, infant, adolescent, teenager, teen
- (with possessive) One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; one's offspring; a son or daughter.
- My youngest child is forty-three this year.
- His adult children visit him yearly.
- (cartomancy) The thirteenth Lenormand card.
- (figurative) A figurative offspring, particularly:
- A person considered a product of a place or culture, a member of a tribe or culture, regardless of age.
- The children of Israel.
- He is a child of his times.
- 1984, Mary Jane Matz, The Many Lives of Otto Kahn: A Biography, page 5:
- For more than forty years, he preached the creed of art and beauty. He was heir to the ancient wisdom of Israel, a child of Germany, a subject of Great Britain, later an American citizen, but in truth a citizen of the world.
- 2009, Edward John Moreton Dunsany, Tales of Wonder, page 64:
- Plash-Goo was of the children of the giants, whose sire was Uph. And the lineage of Uph had dwindled in bulk for the last five hundred years, till the giants were now no more than fifteen foot high; but Uph ate elephants […]
- Anything derived from or caused by something.
- 1991, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children:
- Poverty, disease, and despair are the children of war.
- (computing) A data item, process, or object which has a subservient or derivative role relative to another.
- The child node then stores the actual data of the parent node.
- 2011, John Mongan, Noah Kindler, Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed:
- The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf).
- A person considered a product of a place or culture, a member of a tribe or culture, regardless of age.
- Alternative form of childe (“youth of noble birth”)
- (mathematics) A subordinate node of a tree.
- (obsolete, specifically) A female child, a girl.
- c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The VVinters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene iii], page 288, column 2:
- A boy, or a Childe I wonder?
Synonyms
- (young person): See Thesaurus:child, Thesaurus:boy, & Thesaurus:girl
- (offspring): See offspring and Thesaurus:son and Thesaurus:daughter, binary clone, progeny, hybrid
- (descendant): See descendant
- (product of a place or era): product, son (male), daughter (female)
Antonyms
- (offspring): father, mother, parent
- (person below the age of adulthood): adult
- (data item, process or object in a subordinate role): parent
Derived terms
- abandoned child syndrome
- a burnt child dreads the fire
- barrel child
- black child
- boomerang child
- butterfly child
- call someone everything but a child of God
- child abuse
- child abuser
- child-bearing
- child benefit
- child bride
- child-bride
- child carrier
- child-crowing
- child diddler
- child endangerment
- child-free
- child-fucker
- child-great
- child groom
- childhood
- child-in-law
- childish
- child labor
- child labour
- child language
- childless
- child-like
- childlike
- child lock
- childlove
- childlover
- child-mind
- child minder
- child molestation
- child molester
- child neglect
- child of the kitchen
- child of the manse
- child porn
- child pornography
- child prodigy
- child prostitution
- child restraint
- child safety seat
- child sex abuse
- child sexual abuse
- child soldier
- child support
- child-toucher
- child toucher
- dog-child
- feral child
- flower child
- foster child
- get with child
- god-child
- golden child
- heavy with child
- home child
- honey chile
- Indigo child
- inner child
- innocent as the child unborn
- it is a wise child that knows his own father
- it takes a village to raise a child
- latchkey child
- latch-key child
- love child
- love-child
- maid child
- maid-child
- man child
- man-child
- manchild
- marriage
- middle child
- minor child
- natural child
- once a man, twice a child
- one-child policy
- only child
- perpetual child
- poster child
- pretermitted child
- problem child
- schoolchild
- single child
- snowchild
- sooner child
- spare the rod and spoil the child
- street child
- subchild
- sweet summer child
- thalidomide child
- the burnt child dreads the fire
- the burnt child fears the fire
- two child problem
- unborn child
- war child
- whole child
- wild child
- with child
- woman child
- woman-child
- womb-child
Related terms
- chield
- Child
- childe
- Childermas
Translations
child; daughter, son, someone's child
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a minor
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(figuratively) things or abstractions derived from or caused by something
member of a tribe, a people or a race of beings
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(computing) object which has a subservient or derivative role relative to another object
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(mathematics) subordinate node
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See also
- orling
Etymology 2
From Middle English childen, from the noun child.
Verb
child (third-person singular simple present childs, present participle childing, simple past and past participle childed)
- (archaic, transitive, intransitive) To give birth; to beget or procreate.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, OCLC 932900760, stanza 17, page 512:
- My liefe (ſayd ſhe) ye know, that long ygo,
Whileſt ye in durance dwelt, ye to me gaue
A little mayde, the which ye chylded tho ;
The ſame againe if now ye liſt to haue,
The ſame is yonder Lady, whom high God did ſaue.
- 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Eighteenth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, OCLC 940138160, stanza 26, page 320:
- And from his fertill hollow wombe forth ran,
(Clad in rare weedes and ſtrange habiliment)
A Nymph, for age able to goe to man,
An hundreth plants beſide (euen in his ſight)
Childed an hundreth Nymphes, ſo great, ſo dight: […]
- c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, OCLC 54196469, [Act III, scene v]:
- […] But then the mind much ſufferance doth or'e ſcip,
When griefe hath mates,and bearing fellowſhip :
How light and portable my paine ſeemes now,
When that which makes me bend, makes the King bow,
He childed as I fathered,Tom away,
Marke the high noyſes and thy ſelfe bewray, […]
-
Translations
to give birth — see give birth
Further reading
- Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary (accessed November 2007).
- American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company (2003).
Middle English
Alternative forms
- chyld, chylde, childe, chelde, cild
Etymology
From Old English ċild, from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tʃiːld/
Noun
child (plural children or childre or child or childres)
- A baby, infant, toddler; a person in infancy.
- A child, kid; a young person.
- An offspring, one of one's progeny.
- A childish or stupid individual.
- (Chrisitanity) The Christ child; Jesus as a child.
- (figurative) A member of a creed (usually with the religion in the genitive preposing it)
- A young male, especially one employed as an hireling.
- A young noble training to become a knight; a squire or childe.
- The young of animals or plants.
- A material as a result or outcome.
Related terms
- child bed
- childberyng
- childen
- Childermasse day
- childhode
- childing
- childissh
- childles
- childly
- childwyte
- knave child
- stepchild
Descendants
- English: child
- Scots: child; chield
References
- “chīld, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-23.