child

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: chīld, IPA^(key): /t͡ʃaɪld/, ,

• Audio (RP)

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• Audio (GA)

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• 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”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up, amass”).

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)

2. (broadly) A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority).

   Synonym: kid

   Hyponyms: newborn, neonate, preteen, adolescent, tweenager, teenager, tween, teen, preadult

   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.

   2. (pediatrics, sometimes, in a stricter sense) A youth aged 1 to 9 years, whereas neonates are aged 0 to 1 month, infants are aged 1 to 12 months, and adolescents are aged 10 to 20 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

4. (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.

6. (cartomancy) The thirteenth Lenormand card.
8. (figurative) A figurative offspring, particularly:
   1. 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 […]

   3. Anything derived from or caused by something.
      • 1991, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children:

        Poverty, disease, and despair are the children of war.

   5. (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).

10. Alternative form of childe (“youth of noble birth”)
12. (mathematics, programming) A subordinate node of a tree.
14. (obsolete, specifically) A female child, a girl.
    • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , 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

• (antonym(s) of "offspring"): father, mother, parent
• (antonym(s) of "person below the age of adulthood"): adult
• (antonym(s) of "data item, process or object in a subordinate role"): parent

Derived terms

Related terms

• chield
• Child
• childe
• Childermas

Translations

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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)

1. (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, 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 Hatfield, for I Iaggard and M Lownes, →OCLC, 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, [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

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): /t͡ʃiːld/

Noun

child (plural children or childre or child or childres)

1. A baby, infant, toddler; a person in infancy.
2. A child, kid; a young person.
3. An offspring, one of one's progeny.
4. A childish or stupid individual.
5. (Chrisitanity) The Christ child; Jesus as a child.
6. (figurative) A member of a creed (usually with the religion in the genitive preposing it)
7. A young male, especially one employed as an hireling.
8. A young noble training to become a knight; a squire or childe.
9. The young of animals or plants.
10. A material as a result or outcome.

Related terms

Descendants

• English: child
• Scots: child; chield

References

• “chīld, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-23.