Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Immature, especially in being silly or trivial; childish. synonym: young.
- adjective Archaic Belonging to childhood; juvenile.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to a boy or child; boyish; childish; juvenile.
- Hence Merely childish; lacking intellectual force; trivial: as, a puerile criticism.
- Synonyms Juvenile, Boyish, etc. (see
youthful ). - Weak, foolish, silly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Boyish; childish; trifling; silly.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a
boy orboys ; confer:puellile . - adjective
Childish ;trifling ;silly .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or characteristic of a child
- adjective displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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Maitland in his _Account of the Early Printed Books at Lambeth_, 1843, already takes occasion to animadvert on what he terms the puerile competition for rarities, which had then set in.
The Book-Collector A General Survey of the Pursuit and of those who have engaged in it at Home and Abroad from the Earliest Period to the Present Time William Carew Hazlitt 1873
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Your example of email being maligned as puerile is just a case in point.
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
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I view Goodling's use of the word as an attempt to deny responsibility for her actions by seeing herself in puerile terms.
Balkinization 2007
super-logos commented on the word puerile
Puer is the Latin word for boy.
August 7, 2008