childish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English childish, also childissh,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English cildisc,^[5][4][6][7] formed from Old English cild (“child”) + -isc.^[4][5][6] Similar formations exist in Old Saxon kindisk, Old High German kindisc, Middle High German kindisch, Middle Dutch kintsch and German kindisch.^[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of, like or proper to a child: in the Old English poem Genesis A, cildisc wesan, to be childish.^[8][7] Dictionary.com dates the word to before 1000,^[9] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to before the 12th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word first described what belonged to childhood, and the Middle English Dictionary has a Piers Plowman passage calling charity a childissh þinge.^[2] The disapproving sense, said of someone who is no longer a child, is recorded from Chaucer's Merchant's Tale of about 1395, childissh vanytee;^[8][2] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century.^[5] Margery Kempe, before 1438, uses it of an old man who turned childisch a-ȝen and lost his reason,^[2] a use Merriam-Webster Unabridged keeps as a dated sense.^[4] Johnson (1755) lists both meanings, the qualities of a child and what becomes only children.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1000 – of, like or proper to a child.^[8][9]
• c. 1395 – of an adult, not befitting maturity; puerile, silly.^[8][2]
• before 1438 – of an aged person, weak in mind.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, like or suited to a child or to childhood: a childish scrawl.^[4][11][12]
2. Showing a lack of maturity; puerile, foolish or petty: a childish outburst.^{[4][11][12][8]}
3. (dated) Weakened in mind by age.^[4][2]

Word family

• childishly
• childishness
• unchildish

Related words

• childlike
• child
• -ish

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt