Meanings
- rareuncountableThe act or process of acquiring puerile characteristics.
British religious educator John Hull warns churches of the dangers of maintaining the puerilization of their members (keeping them childish in their thinking).
2003, F. LeRon Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality, page 682 more examples
We have sometimes fancied that the modern noises are the utterances of that rejuvenescence, another name for recrudescence, which has overtaken the race. It seems to be turning boy and girl again in that puerilization following its devotion to manly sports, as they are called.
1906, “Editor's Easy Chair”, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume 113, number 678and this in turn leads to what could be called (it's the same thing, but the other way around) a puerilization of adults. An infantilization. Young people can remain young indefinitely because there is no specific demarcation, which means that adulthood is both continually and partially an extension of childhood.
2017, Alain Badiou, The True Life
Origin
Cite this entry
puerilization. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/puerilization
“puerilization.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/puerilization. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “puerilization,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/puerilization.
Source: puerilization on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.