cherub

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A winged celestial being.
2. n. Christianity The second of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology.
3. n. A representation of a small angel, portrayed as a child with a chubby rosy face.
4. n. A person, especially a child, with an innocent or chubby face.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One of an order of angels variously represented at different times, but generally as winged spirits with a human countenance (often simply as winged heads), and distinguished by their knowledge from the seraphs, whose distinctive quality is love. In the celestial hierarchy cherubs are represented as next in order to seraphs. The first mention of cherubs is in Gen. iii. 24, where their figure is not described, but their office was, with a flaming sword, to keep or guard the way of the tree of life. Figures of a pair of cherubs were placed on the mercy-seat of the ark, and a pair of colossal size overshadowed it in Solomon's temple with the canopy of their contiguously extended wings. They are called “the cherubims of glory” (Heb. ix. 5), as on them the glory, when visible, rested. They were anointed with the holy oil, like the ark itself and the other sacred furniture. Their wings were stretched upward, and their faces turned “toward each other, and toward the mercy-seat.” The cherubs seen in Ezekiel's vision had each four heads or faces, the hands of a man, and wings. The four faces were the face of a cherub, that of a man, that of a lion, and that of an eagle. They had the bodily form of a man. (Ezek. x.) The hieroglyphical and emblematical figures embroidered on the veils of the tabernacle were called “cherubims of cunning work” (Ex. xxvi. 1).
2. n. A beautiful child: so called because in painting and sculpture cherubs are generally represented as beautiful winged children.

Wiktionary

1. n. A winged creature represented over 90 times in the Bible as attending on God, later seen as the second highest order of angels, ranked above thrones and below seraphim. First mention is in Genesis 3:24
2. n. A statue or other depiction of such a being, typically in the form of winged child.
3. n. figuratively A person, especially a child, seen as being particularly innocent or angelic.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A mysterious composite being, the winged footstool and chariot of the Almighty, described in Ezekiel i. and x.
2. n. A symbolical winged figure of unknown form used in connection with the mercy seat of the Jewish Ark and Temple.
3. n. One of a order of angels, variously represented in art. In European painting the cherubim have been shown as blue, to denote knowledge, as distinguished from the seraphim (see Seraph), and in later art the children's heads with wings are generally called cherubs.
4. n. A beautiful child; -- so called because artists have represented cherubs as beautiful children.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an angel of the second order whose gift is knowledge; usually portrayed as a winged child
2. n. a sweet innocent baby