Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking adult maturity or experience; immature: a callow young man.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Bald; without hair.
- Without feathers; that has not yet put forth feathers; naked; unfledged, as a young bird: as, “callow young,”
- Pertaining to an unfledged bird: as, “callow down,” Drayton, The Owl.
- Youthful; juvenile; very immature: as, a callow youth.
- n. A bald person; a baldhead.
- n. An alluvial flat along a river-course: a term used by writers on Irish geology and agriculture.
- n. In coal-mining, the baring, or cover, of open workings.
- Having the character of an alluvial flat: as, callow land; a callow meadow.
- n. In entomology, an insect just emerged from its cocoon: especially applied to ants.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Bald.
- adj. Unfledged (of a young bird).
- adj. Immature, lacking in life experience.
- adj. Lacking color or firmness (of some kinds of insects or other arthropods, such as spiders, just after ecdysis). Teneral.
- adj. Shallow or weak-willed.
- adj. Unburnt (of a brick)
- n. A callow young bird.
- n. A callow or teneral phase of an insect or other arthropod, typically shortly after ecdysis, while the skin still is hardening, the colours have not yet become stable, and as a rule, before the animal is able to move effectively.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Destitute of feathers; naked; unfledged.
- adj. Immature; boyish; “green”.
- n. (Zoöl.) A kind of duck. See old squaw.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. young and inexperienced
Etymologies
- From Middle English calwe ("bald"), from Old English calu ("callow, bare, bald"), from Proto-Germanic *kalwaz (“bare, naked, bald”), from Proto-Indo-European *gAlw- (“naked, bald”). Cognate with West Frisian keal ("bald"), Dutch kaal ("bald"), German kahl ("bald"), Russian голый (gólyj, "nude"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English calwe, bald, from Old English calu. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“(Being a new anonymous:) I have nothing at all to say about Kate DiCamillo as a person, but agree that her work is often heavy-handed, condescending, uninteresting, and just plain callow.”
“This is hardly triumphalism, but calling a callow frat boy out on his bullshit.”
“He suddenly recalled a callow boy telling his tutor that he dreaded the sea voyage home, because he would have to be among common men rather than thoughtful acolytes like himself.”
“The man of the world sometimes came upon the glove in his pocket, and laughed at it, as such men do when they recall their callow youth.”
“Rolling Stone said that Stevie's singing was "callow," and many reviews said something like "... the raucous voice of Stevie Nicks and the golden-throated Christine McVie, who's the only good thing this band has left.”
“I don't excuse what he's done on the basis of kind of callow youth, because I think he's a 20-year-old who has spent about 17 or 18 years of that in on-the-job training for being a royal, so he should know better.”
“In previous debates, he's looked rather young, inexperienced, "callow" is a word you sometimes heard, not ready for primetime, out of his element.”
“Next morning early they sent in their 'callow' verses to the great man, and followed shortly themselves.”
The Age of Erasmus Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London
“A Don Knotts stereotype, he was the nation's youngest mayor in 1977 when Cleveland went belly-up because he wouldn't cut enough to balance the budget-thus giving the word "callow" a bad connotation ….”
“It later garnered a reputation for a certain kind of callow albeit popular licensed book, and for its constant attention to replicating certain effects of previous successful efforts -- the kind of relaunch and reconfigure and rehash grind that slowly drives readers away.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘callow’.
-
Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
-
Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
-
allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
-
phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
caballine, cabas, cable, caboched, cabochon, caboose, cabotage, cabré, cabrie, cabriole, cabriolet, cacaesthesia and 1298 more...
-
WordMasters Blue Division Set 2
verge, taper, lucrative, prig, ransack, wizened, martinet, flucuate, verbose, enigma, subdue, fertile and 12 more...
-
Interesting Words
A list of words that I find cool.
décolleté, ineluctably, pantechnicon, ossary, peripeteia, harridan, recidivist, irremediable, suppuration, slaver, loam, umbrage and 15 more...
-
big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
-
gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1861 more...
-
Words I like
A list contrived for the sole purpose of storing words I like to include in my writing; words that inspire or carry power for me.
contrite, meadow, sward, ossary, calumny, moribund, necropolis, chthonic, murmur, erstwhile, chime, beryl and 63 more...
-
Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
-
ICE
quincunx, adoxography, panjundrum, breloque, surd, scripturient, rousant, favrile, embouchure, aquarelle, griffonage, sussultatory and 234 more...
-
GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
-
SAT vocab
abash, abdicate, abate, aberration, abhor, abject, abnegate, abortive, absolve, abstruse, accolade, accost and 175 more...
-
bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
-
Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
-
ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for callow.

marco_nj "callow narcissism" Jan 21, 2009
rolig "If there's a candidate who exceeded realistic expectations, it was Biden who knocked it out of the park and exposed Palin for the attractive, but callow, candidate she really is."
– DemFromCT, "Musings over Morning Coffee", DailyKos, 3 October 2008, on the vice-presidential candidates' debate, 2 October 2008.
"Callow" is exactly the right word. Oct 3, 2008