childlike

Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to childlike: ChildLine

childlike

like or befitting a child; innocent: His childlike bashfulness is charming.

Not to be confused with:

childish – immature; infantile: Screaming and stamping your feet is childish.

child·like

(chīld′līk′)

adj.

Like or befitting a child, as in innocence, trustfulness, or candor.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

childlike

(ˈtʃaɪldˌlaɪk)

adj

like or befitting a child, as in being innocent, trustful, etc. Compare childish²

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

child•like

(ˈtʃaɪldˌlaɪk)

adj.

like or befitting a child: childlike trust.

[1580–90]

child′like`ness, n.

syn: See childish.

childish

– childlike

1. 'childish'

You say that someone is childish if you think they are behaving in a silly or immature way.

We were shocked by Josephine's selfish and childish behaviour.

Don't be so childish.

2. 'childlike'

You describe someone's voice, appearance, or behaviour as childlike when it seems like that of a child.

Her voice was fresh and childlike.

'That's amazing!' he cried with childlike enthusiasm.

Collins COBUILD English Usage © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 2004, 2011, 2012

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Adj.	1.	childlike - befitting a young child; "childlike charm" childly young, immature - (used of living things especially persons) in an early period of life or development or growth; "young people"
	2.	childlike - exhibiting childlike simplicity and credulity; "childlike trust"; "dewy-eyed innocence"; "listened in round-eyed wonder" dewy-eyed, round-eyed, wide-eyed, simple naif, naive - marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience; "a teenager's naive ignorance of life"; "the naive assumption that things can only get better"; "this naive simple creature with wide friendly eyes so eager to believe appearances"

childlike

adjective innocent, trusting, simple, naive, credulous, artless, ingenuous, guileless, unfeigned, trustful She had never lost her childlike sense of wonder.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

childlike

adjective

Of or like a baby:

babyish, cherubic, infantile, infantine.

Translations

طُفولي، كالوَلَد

dětský

barnagtigbarnlig

barnslegur

çocuk gibimasum

childlike

[ˈtʃaɪldlaɪk] ADJ → de niño
with a childlike faith → con una confianza ingenua

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

childlike

[ˈtʃaɪldlaɪk] adj

[innocence] → innocent(e), pur(e)

[behaviour, quality] → enfantin(e); [voice] → d'enfant

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

childlike

[ˈtʃaɪldˌlaɪk] adj → ingenuo/a, innocente

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

child

(tʃaild) – plural children (ˈtʃildrən) – noun

1. a young human being of either sex.

2. a son or daughter. Her youngest child is five years old.

ˈchildhood noun

the state or time of being a child. Her childhood was a time of happiness.

ˈchildish adjective

like a child; silly. a childish remark.

ˈchildishly adverb

ˈchildishness noun

ˈchildless adjective

having no children. the childless couple.

ˈchildlike adjective

innocent; like a child. childlike faith; trustful and childlike.

ˈchildbirth noun

the act of giving birth to a child. She died in childbirth.

child's play

something very easy. Climbing that hill will be child's play.

References in classic literature ?

She could not pray: under the rush of solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floated uncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her own.

Casaubon was touched with an unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?) that he should be the object of it.

It was this which made Dorothea so childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with all her reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwing herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr.

View in context

Enoch Robinson stared at George Willard, his childlike blue eyes shining in the lamplight.

View in context

Sometimes he had written from Boston and asked her the news of Riverboro, and she had sent him pages of quaint and childlike gossip, interspersed, on two occasions, with poetry, which he read and reread with infinite relish.

Adam put a finger under Rebecca's chin and looked into her eyes; eyes as soft, as clear, as unconscious, and childlike as they had been when she was ten.

View in context

On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and unconsciously uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.

View in context

"Who's Vronsky?" said Levin, and his face was suddenly transformed from the look of childlike ecstasy which Oblonsky had just been admiring to an angry and unpleasant expression.

View in context

It is a sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life.

View in context

In his new solo exhibit for Galerie Stephanie at Shangri-La Plaza, 'Analog Obscura,' top-selling painter Farley del Rosario employs his vintage naif art to express his childlike fascination with vintage cameras.

Playful nostalgia in Farley del Rosario's 'Analog Obscura'

A PERVERT who illegally imported a sex doll with "childlike features" was warned he could face jail - despite having terminal cancer.

Pervert who imported 'childlike' sex doll told he faces jail; man, 61, sobs in dock after admitting vile porn haul

One of the sex dolls was 4ft 7in, or 140cm, in height and had both "childlike and adultlike features", according to an expert.

Pervert bought sex doll with 'childlike features' and kept 'extreme animal porn'; Darryl Sharratt, who has terminal cancer, from Haydock, St Helens, near Liverpool, may be jailed for the sickening offences

CITE

Site: Follow: Share:

Open / Close