"puerile" meaning in English

See puerile in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

IPA: /ˈpjʊə.ɹaɪl/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈpjʊɹɪl/ [General-American], /ˈpjʊɹaɪl/ [General-American] Audio: en-us-puerile.ogg [US], en-au-puerile.ogg [Australia] Forms: more puerile [comparative], most puerile [superlative]
Etymology: From Latin puerīlis (“childish”), from puer (“child, boy”). Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*peh₂w-}}, {{der|en|la|puerīlis|t=childish}} Latin puerīlis (“childish”), {{m|la|puer|t=child, boy}} puer (“child, boy”) Head templates: {{en-adj}} puerile (comparative more puerile, superlative most puerile)
  1. Childish; trifling; silly. Synonyms: juvenile, silly, trifling, childish, insignificant
    Sense id: en-puerile-en-adj-lBZ0-aC2 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 74 26
  2. Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; compare puellile. Translations (characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys): момчешки (momčeški) (Bulgarian), puerala (Ido), barnslig (Norwegian Bokmål), barnsleg (Norwegian Nynorsk), мальчи́шеский (malʹčíšeskij) (Russian), pueril (Spanish), хлоп'ячий (xlopʺjačyj) [masculine] (Ukrainian)
    Sense id: en-puerile-en-adj-8tJbbjHe Disambiguation of 'characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys': 1 99
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: puerilely, puerilism, puerility, puerilization Related terms: boyish, yobbish, youthful

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for puerile meaning in English (6.0kB)

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "puerilely"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "puerilism"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "puerility"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "puerilization"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*peh₂w-"
      },
      "expansion": "",
      "name": "root"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "la",
        "3": "puerīlis",
        "t": "childish"
      },
      "expansion": "Latin puerīlis (“childish”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "la",
        "2": "puer",
        "t": "child, boy"
      },
      "expansion": "puer (“child, boy”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Latin puerīlis (“childish”), from puer (“child, boy”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more puerile",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most puerile",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "puerile (comparative more puerile, superlative most puerile)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "boyish"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "yobbish"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "youthful"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "74 26",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1850, Thomas De Quincey, French and English Manners (originally published in Hogg's Instructor\nThe French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1927, Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, page 79",
          "text": "From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1853 March 22, Karl Marx, “Forced Emigration”, in New-York Tribune",
          "text": "Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 April 12, Simon Russell Beale, “Why Shakespeare always says something new: As the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth approaches, the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale explains his secrets [print version: The king and I]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London, page R7",
          "text": "[…] I have always found it hard that Hamlet, a character that I love and admire, is guilty of a puerile misogyny and, perhaps, more worryingly, of the unnecessary deaths of his old friends from university, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1930 July, West Kirby, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Preface (page 9 of the Dover 1968 reprint of L&FM and Star Maker)",
          "text": "Today we should welcome, and even study, every serious attempt to envisage the future of our race, not merely to grasp the very diverse and often tragic possibilities that confront us, but also that we may familiarize ourselves with the certainty that many of our cherished ideals would seem puerile to more developed minds."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Childish; trifling; silly."
      ],
      "id": "en-puerile-en-adj-lBZ0-aC2",
      "links": [
        [
          "Childish",
          "childish"
        ],
        [
          "trifling",
          "trifling"
        ],
        [
          "silly",
          "silly"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "juvenile"
        },
        {
          "word": "silly"
        },
        {
          "word": "trifling"
        },
        {
          "word": "childish"
        },
        {
          "word": "insignificant"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; compare puellile."
      ],
      "id": "en-puerile-en-adj-8tJbbjHe",
      "links": [
        [
          "boy",
          "boy"
        ],
        [
          "boys",
          "boys"
        ],
        [
          "puellile",
          "puellile#English"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "bg",
          "lang": "Bulgarian",
          "roman": "momčeški",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "word": "момчешки"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "io",
          "lang": "Ido",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "word": "puerala"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "word": "barnslig"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "nn",
          "lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "word": "barnsleg"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "malʹčíšeskij",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "word": "мальчи́шеский"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "word": "pueril"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "uk",
          "lang": "Ukrainian",
          "roman": "xlopʺjačyj",
          "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "хлоп'ячий"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈpjʊə.ɹaɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈpjʊɹɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈpjʊɹaɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-puerile.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7b/En-us-puerile.ogg/En-us-puerile.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/En-us-puerile.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (US)"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-puerile.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/ff/En-au-puerile.ogg/En-au-puerile.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/En-au-puerile.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "puerile"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English 2-syllable words",
    "English adjectives",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English terms derived from Latin",
    "English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
    "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *peh₂w-",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "Requests for review of Italian translations",
    "Requests for review of Latin translations"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "puerilely"
    },
    {
      "word": "puerilism"
    },
    {
      "word": "puerility"
    },
    {
      "word": "puerilization"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*peh₂w-"
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      "expansion": "",
      "name": "root"
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "la",
        "3": "puerīlis",
        "t": "childish"
      },
      "expansion": "Latin puerīlis (“childish”)",
      "name": "der"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "la",
        "2": "puer",
        "t": "child, boy"
      },
      "expansion": "puer (“child, boy”)",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Latin puerīlis (“childish”), from puer (“child, boy”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more puerile",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most puerile",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "puerile (comparative more puerile, superlative most puerile)",
      "name": "en-adj"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "boyish"
    },
    {
      "word": "yobbish"
    },
    {
      "word": "youthful"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1850, Thomas De Quincey, French and English Manners (originally published in Hogg's Instructor\nThe French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1927, Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, page 79",
          "text": "From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1853 March 22, Karl Marx, “Forced Emigration”, in New-York Tribune",
          "text": "Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 April 12, Simon Russell Beale, “Why Shakespeare always says something new: As the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth approaches, the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale explains his secrets [print version: The king and I]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London, page R7",
          "text": "[…] I have always found it hard that Hamlet, a character that I love and admire, is guilty of a puerile misogyny and, perhaps, more worryingly, of the unnecessary deaths of his old friends from university, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1930 July, West Kirby, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Preface (page 9 of the Dover 1968 reprint of L&FM and Star Maker)",
          "text": "Today we should welcome, and even study, every serious attempt to envisage the future of our race, not merely to grasp the very diverse and often tragic possibilities that confront us, but also that we may familiarize ourselves with the certainty that many of our cherished ideals would seem puerile to more developed minds."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Childish; trifling; silly."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Childish",
          "childish"
        ],
        [
          "trifling",
          "trifling"
        ],
        [
          "silly",
          "silly"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "juvenile"
        },
        {
          "word": "silly"
        },
        {
          "word": "trifling"
        },
        {
          "word": "childish"
        },
        {
          "word": "insignificant"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; compare puellile."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "boy",
          "boy"
        ],
        [
          "boys",
          "boys"
        ],
        [
          "puellile",
          "puellile#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈpjʊə.ɹaɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈpjʊɹɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈpjʊɹaɪl/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-puerile.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7b/En-us-puerile.ogg/En-us-puerile.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/En-us-puerile.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (US)"
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-puerile.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/ff/En-au-puerile.ogg/En-au-puerile.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/En-au-puerile.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "bg",
      "lang": "Bulgarian",
      "roman": "momčeški",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "word": "момчешки"
    },
    {
      "code": "io",
      "lang": "Ido",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "word": "puerala"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "word": "barnslig"
    },
    {
      "code": "nn",
      "lang": "Norwegian Nynorsk",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "word": "barnsleg"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "malʹčíšeskij",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "word": "мальчи́шеский"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "word": "pueril"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "roman": "xlopʺjačyj",
      "sense": "characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "хлоп'ячий"
    }
  ],
  "word": "puerile"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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