child English · revision 3636

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=inherited|attested=c. 750 (Cynewulf's Elene)|origins=gem-pro *kiltham}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /tʃaɪld/, plural /ˈtʃɪl.drᵊn/^(Roach et al. 2011)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[inh|enm|child]], [[inh|ang|cild|t=fetus, infant]],^(Etymonline)^(Barnhart 1988)^(AHD 2000) from [[gem-pro|*kiltham]],^(Etymonline)^(Hoad 1986) a word that Hoad calls peculiar to English.^(Hoad 1986) Its closest relatives are Old English [[m|ang|cildhama|t=womb]], literally “child-home”, and Scandinavian words for a litter or brood such as [[da|kuld]] and [[sv|kull]],^(Etymonline)^(Barnhart 1988)^(Klein 1966) and it has no certain relatives outside Germanic.^(Etymonline) Barnhart notes that Old High German [[m|goh|kind|t=child]] and its Old Frisian and Old Saxon equivalents cannot be satisfactorily connected with it.^(Barnhart 1988)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ A fetus, an infant, a newborn: Old English ''cild'', about 750, in Cynewulf's ''Elene''.^(Barnhart 1988)^(Etymonline) Etymonline, following Buck, notes that it seems at first always to have been used in relation to the mother, as the fruit of the womb.^(Etymonline)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ In late Old English ''child'' came to mean a young person before puberty, and also a youth of noble birth, the archaic ''childe''.^(Etymonline) ''With child'', “pregnant”, keeps the original sense, from the late 12th century, when ''child'' also came to mean one's own son or daughter, replacing Old English ''bearn''.^(Etymonline) In the 16th and 17th centuries it was used especially of a girl, as in ''The Winter's Tale'': “A boy or a child, I wonder?”^(Cresswell 2021)^(Etymonline) The Old English plural was ''cild'', like the singular, then ''cildru'' from about 975; adding the plural ending ''-en'' gave ''children'' about 1175, a double plural,^(Barnhart 1988)^(Etymonline)^(Hoad 1986) while the older ''childre'' survives in dialect ''childer'' and in ''Childermas''.^(Etymonline) ''Childish'' goes back to Old English ''cildisc'', and ''childhood'' and ''childbed'' are probably from before 1200.^(Barnhart 1988) ''Children should be seen and not heard'' was first said of young women: about 1400 it was already an old saying that “a maid should be seen, but not heard”.^(Cresswell 2021)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * c. 750 – Old English ''cild'' (Cynewulf).^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * c. 975 – plural ''cildru''.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * before 1000 – ''cildisc'', childish.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * c. 1175 – ''child'' and the plural ''children''.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * late 12th century – ''with child''; one's offspring.^(Etymonline)

+ * c. 1350 – ''child's play''.^(Barnhart 1988)

+ * c. 1400 – “a maid should be seen, but not heard”.^(Cresswell 2021)

+ * 16th–17th century – a girl.^(Etymonline)

+

+ ==Modern meaning==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A person between birth and [[puberty]].^(AHD)^(SOED 2002)

+ # An unborn or newborn baby.^(AHD)^(Etymonline)

+ # A childish or immature person.^(AHD)

+ # A son or daughter; [[offspring]].^(AHD)^(Etymonline)

+ # A person strongly shaped by a given time or place: ''a child of the sixties''.^(AHD)

+ # ''(archaic)'' A youth of noble birth.^(Etymonline)^(SOED 2002)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[childless]]

+ * [[childlessness]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[chield]]

+ * [[childe]]

+ * [[Childermas]]

+ * [[childhood]]

+ * [[childish]]

+ * [[children]]

+ * [[bairn]]

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}