infant

plural infants · alternative obsolete infaunt

1. A very young human being, from birth to somewhere between six months and two years of age after birth, needing almost constant care and attention.

   Synonyms: baby

2. lawA minor.

   Thomas Humphrey Doleman died the 30th of August 1712, an infant, intestate and without issue; Lewis the next nephew died the 17th of April 1716, an infant about sixteen years old, having left his mother Mary Webb, ...

   1793, William Peere Williams, Samuel Compton Cox, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery, and of Some Special Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench [1695-1735]: De Term. S. Trin. 1731, page 602

3. CommonwealthIrelandUKcountableA student in an infant school or the first part of a primary school.
4. obsoleteA noble or aristocratic youth.

   Retourned home, the royall Infant fell / Into her former fitt [...].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

alternative obsolete infaunt

1. CommonwealthIrelandUKnot comparableOf or pertaining to the earlier half of primary school education.

   Clearly, from the attention given to it, HMI believed that history should be part of the infant curriculum.

   2022 November 21, Carol Aubrey, The Role of Subject Knowledge in the Early Years of Schooling, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN

   1 more example

   Primary schooling in Ireland comprises two Infant years, which are equivalent to pre-school in other countries , and six grades or classes.

   2019, Sandra Ballweg, Portfolioarbeit im Kontext von Sprachenunterricht, Göttingen University Press, →ISBN, page 26

2. figurativelynot comparablesmall, being near its source.

   Leaving Nantyglo, a small station at an altitude of 1,030 ft. with the platform on the eastern side, the train runs northwards over former G.W.R. metals, with the infant River Ebbw, a little more than a yard wide, on the west.

   1957 October 28, William J. Skillern, “The Brynmawr & Western Valleys Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 696

present singular third person infants · participle present infanting · participle past infanted · past infanted · alternative obsolete infaunt

1. obsoleteTo bear or bring forth (a child); to produce, in general.

   This worthy motto, "No bishop, no king," is […] infanted out of the same fears.

   1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Causes that hitherto have Hindred it. […], [London]: […] Thomas Vnderhill, →OCLC