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. Bald.
- adj. Unfledged (of a young bird).
- adj. Immature, lacking in life experience.
- adj. Lacking color (of some newly emerged adult insects).
- adj. Shallow or weak-willed.
- adj. Unburnt (of a brick)
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Destitute of feathers; naked; unfledged.
- adj. Immature; boyish; “green”.
- n. A kind of duck. See old squaw.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. young and inexperienced
Etymologies
- Middle English calwe, bald, from Old English calu.
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.”
Ship Of Destiny
“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’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
-
"Brave New World"
From the book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, which I purchased by accident.
brevity, florid, callow, sibilant, boskage, apopletic, asceptic, setentious, decant, predestine, viviparous, proliferate and 7 more...
-
Interesting Words
A list of words that I find cool.
décolleté, ineluctably, pantechnicon, ossary, peripeteia, harridan, recidivist, irremediable, suppuration, slaver, loam, umbrage and 5 more...
-
From The Brothers Karamozov
I either liked the word usage or I didn't know the word.
supercilious, Anathema, Casuist, Incorrigible, decrepit, fanfaronade, axiom, muddleheaded, anthropophagie, callow, swaggar, opined and 8 more...
-
GRE
abase, broach, brocade, burgeon, bungle, bureaucracy, burly, burnished, browbeat, brusque, bucolic, buffoonery and 20 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 29 more...
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