Childhood

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Childhood \Child"hood\ (ch[imac]ld"h[oo^]d), n. [AS. cildh[=a]d;
     cild child + -h[=a]d. See {Child}, and {-hood}.]
     1. The state of being a child; the time in which persons are
        children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty.
        [1913 Webster]
  


              I have walked before you from my childhood. --1.
                                                    Sam. xii. 2.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Children, taken collectively. [R.]
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The well-governed childhood of this realm. --Sir. W.
                                                    Scott.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. The commencement; the first period.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The childhood of our joy.             --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Second childhood}, the state of being feeble and incapable
        from old age.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  childhood
       n 1: the time of person's life when they are a child
       2: the state of a child between infancy and adolescence [syn: {puerility}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  30 Moby Thesaurus words for "childhood":
     adolescence, babyhood, beginnings, birth, boyhood, cradle,
     freshman year, genesis, girlhood, inception, inchoation,
     incipience, incipiency, incunabula, infancy, maidenhead,
     maidenhood, minority, nascence, nascency, nativity, origin,
     origination, parturition, pre-teens, pregnancy, puberty, subteens,
     teens, youth
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  CHILDHOOD, n.  The period of human life intermediate between the
  idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin
  of manhood and three from the remorse of age.