Childhood

//ˈtʃaɪld.hʊd// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state of being a child. uncountable

    "To our own surprise, our 40-year study of 1,000 children revealed that childhood self-control strongly predicts adult success, in people of high or low intelligence, in rich or poor, and does so throughout the entire population, with a step change in health, wealth, and social success at every level of self-control."

  2. 2
    the state of a child between infancy and adolescence wordnet
  3. 3
    The time during which one is a child, from between infancy and puberty. countable, uncountable

    "He stood transfixed before the unaccustomed view of London at night time, a vast panorama which reminded him […] of some wood engravings far off and magical, in a printshop in his childhood."

  4. 4
    the time of person's life when they are a child wordnet
  5. 5
    The early stages of development of something. broadly, countable, uncountable

    "the childhood of our joy"

Synonyms

All synonyms
adolescencebabyhoodbeginningbeginningsbirthboyhood

Example

More examples

"In nostalgic moments we may tend to think of childhood as a time of almost unbroken happiness."

Etymology

From Middle English childhode, childhod, from Old English ċildhād (“childhood”). By surface analysis, child + -hood. Compare dialectal Dutch kindheid (“childishness”), German Low German Kinnerheid (“childhood”), and German Kindheit (“childhood”).

Related phrases

childhood autismchildhood disintegrative disorderchildhood friendchildhood memoryearly childhoodearly childhood educationmiddle childhoodsecond childhoodsurgically induced childhoodyoung timeyouth time

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.