child

plural children · archaic dialectal plural childer · alternative archaic childe · alternative Southern US pronunciation spelling chile · alternative childrens · alternative nonstandard rare childs

1. broadlyA person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority).

   Go easy on him: he is but a child.

   4 more examples

   Regular chores can be appropriate for children, given age-appropriate limits on difficulty level and time on task.

   And not just the children, teenagers too. Chuck wants a football, Kathleen a tattoo.

   2003 Powerpuff Girls: 'Twas the Fight Before Christmas (narration)

   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.

   2013 June 7, Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalisation is about taxes too”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 19

   In one case, a mother was deported and took her 2-year-old child with her, while the other involves another mother deported and her 4- and 7-year-old children went with her, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Project, among other organizations, said in a news release Friday.

   2025 April 27, Dakin Andone, “3 children who are US citizens — including one with cancer — deported with their mothers, lawyers and advocacy groups say”, in CNN

   Synonyms: kid

   1. broadlysometimesA 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.

      Synonyms: kid

2. One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; one's offspring; a son or daughter.

   His adult children visit him yearly.

   1 more example

   My youngest child is forty-three this year.

   Synonyms: descendant

3. cartomancyThe thirteenth Lenormand card.
4. A figurative offspring
   1. figurativelyA person considered a product of a place or culture, a member of a tribe or culture, regardless of age.

      the children of Israel

      3 more examples

      He is a child of his times.

      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.

      1984, Mary Jane Matz, The Many Lives of Otto Kahn: A Biography, page 5

      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[…]

      2009, Edward John Moreton Dunsany, Tales of Wonder, page 64

      Synonyms: product, son, daughter

   2. figurativelyAnything derived from or caused by something.

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

      1991, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

   3. figurativelycomputingA 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.

      1 more example

      The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf).

      2011, John Mongan, Noah Kindler, Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed

5. alternativeAlternative form of childe (“youth of noble birth”).
6. computingA subordinate node of a tree.
7. figurativelyAn adult or adolescent with childish or stupid behaviors.

   My husband is such a child, going out with his sled everytime it snows.

8. obsoletespecificallyA female child, a girl.

   A boy, or a Childe I wonder?

   c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 288, column 2

present singular third person childs · participle present childing · participle past childed · past childed

1. ambitransitivearchaicTo give birth; to beget or procreate.

   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.

   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

   2 more examples

   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:[…]

   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, stanza 26, page 320

   […]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,[…]

   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]

alternative Childe · alternative Chill

1. Alternative letter-case form of child often used when referring to God (Jesus) or another important child who is understood from context.

   He appeared as an only begotten Child, as a Child calling us to be children also, and yet with this difference, that He and His Father maintained a holy intimacy with each other which no one dared to share.

   1906, Record of Christian Work, volume 25, page 861

   1 more example

   This emendation is echoed in Thekla's reunion with Paul outside the city, where she offers the following prayer of thanksgiving: God, King and Blessed Creator of everything, and Father of your great and only begotten Child, I give you thanks.

   2012, Charles M. Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite, →ISBN, page 62

alternative Childe · alternative Chill

1. A surname.