childishness
(ˈtʃaɪldɪʃnɪs)
[f. as prec. + -ness.]
Childish quality.
1. Quality or conduct natural to a child.
| 1526 Tindale 1 Cor. xiii. 11 I put awaye all childesshnes. 1607 Shakes. Cor. v. iii. 157 Speake thou Boy, Perhaps thy childishnesse will moue him more Then can our Reasons. 1833 Lamb Elia, Pop. Fallacies xii, The children of the very poor do not prattle..there is no childishness in [their] dwellings. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets viii. 246 A sort of southern childishness and swiftness of gleeful apprehension. |
2. Quality or conduct not befitting mature age; puerility, silliness.
| 1553 T. Wilson Rhet. 9 Gentle in behavor without childishenes. 1665 J. Spencer Prophecies 29 From a weakness and childishness of temper. 1742 Richardson Pamela II. 292, I cannot bear this silly Childishness. 1883 A. Roberts O.T. Revision x. 214 The most stupendous mass of childishness and folly. |
b. (with pl.) A piece of childishness. rare.
| 1587 Golding De Mornay ix. 120 What a childishnesse is this? 1725 Bailey Erasm. Colloq. Pref., Follies and Childishnesses. |
† 3. = childhood. rare. Obs.
| 1660 N. Ingelo Bentiv. & Ur. (1682) ii. 17 Those years which are esteem'd the confines of Childishness and Manhood. |
4. second childishness: the childishness incident to old age, ‘second childhood’ (see childhood 4).
| 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. ii. vii. 165 Last Scene of all..Is second childishnesse, and meere obliuion. 1759 Sterne Tr. Shandy ii. xix. 1809–10 Coleridge Friend (1865) 74 The old man doth not become a child by means of his second childishness. 1878 Mrs. H. Wood Pomeroy Ab. (ed. 3) 449 The revelation made..by Naomi in her second childishness. |