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  1. precocious love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Manifesting or characterized by unusually early development or maturity, especially in mental aptitude.
  2. adj. Botany Blossoming before the appearance of leaves.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Ripe before the natural time.
  2. Ripe in understanding at an early period; prematurely developed; forward: as, a precocious child; precocious faculties.
  3. Indicative of precocity; characteristic of early maturity; anticipative of greater age; premature.
  4. In botany, appearing before the leaves: said of flowers.
  5. In biology, present in an egg or embryo at a very early stage in an imperceptible condition; present before becoming manifest.
  6. Noting birds that, like chickens, are able to run about as soon as hatched; precocial. See Præcoces.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Characterized by exceptionally early development or maturity.
  2. adj. Exhibiting advanced skills at an abnormally early age.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. rare Ripe or mature before the proper or natural time; early or prematurely ripe or developed.
  2. adj. Developed more than is natural or usual at a given age; exceeding what is to be expected of one's years; too forward; -- used especially of mental forwardness

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. characterized by or characteristic of exceptionally early development or maturity (especially in mental aptitude)
  2. adj. appearing or developing early

Etymologies

  1. From Latin praecox ("premature, precocious, ripe before time, early ripe"), from praecoquere ("to ripen beforehand, ripen fully, also boil beforehand"), from prae ("before") + coquere ("to cook, boil"). (Wiktionary)
  2. From Latin praecox, praecoc-, premature, from praecoquere, to boil before, ripen early : prae-, pre- + coquere, to cook, ripen; see pekw- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “I think the term precocious is applicable as is free spirited.”

    Survivor: Child Island

  • “The shout of laughter that followed this was not in proportion to the depth but the unexpectedness of the joke, and John Adams went on his way, chuckling at the impudence of what he called the precocious snipe.”

    The Lonely Island The Refuge of the Mutineers

  • “For a young kid, he's extremely precocious from a standpoint of being a professional pitcher.”

    USATODAY.com - Beckett unfazed by hype and early frustrations

  • “Now those abominations whom you call precocious boys -- your little pet monsters, doctor!”

    Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 2

  • “Just by singing in English, precocious French duo the Do (pronounced "doe") have sparked a cultural shift in their homeland.”

    frogsmoke.com

  • “I am certain that any 4-year old who not only knows the word precocious, but can also spell and properly use the word, also knows the word “fuck”. reply”

    Schwarzenegger Gives California Legislature A Hidden Finger

  • “After the judges called her precocious, the word become the #1 search term on google trends. btw, pre·co·cious: unusually advanced or mature in development, esp. mental development: a precocious child.”

    American Idol 7 Miami Auditions: Ilsy Lorena Pinot (Video)

  • “Behaviour that would have been called precocious decades ago and dealt with via discipline now requires doped up youth so that communist teachers don't have to work so hard.”

    The drugging of boys...

  • “From here, we step forward to our own English word precocious, said of a child who has ripened, or matured, early.”

    Archive 2006-07-01

  • “Byron recalls the precocious feelings of his childhood toward his little cousins -- feelings so strong as to make him lose sleep, appetite, peace; when he describes them, still unable to explain them -- we feel that they were passions much more ethereal with him than with children in general.”

    Lord Byron jugé par les témoins de sa vie. English

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synonyms (3)

Words with the same meaning

  1. forward
  1. advanced
  1. premature

equivalents (2)

Other words for ‘precocious’

  1. advanced
  1. early

antonyms (4)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. backward
  1. dull
  1. stupid
  1. serotinous

same context (19)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. wayward
  2. impetuous
  3. immature
  1. impressionable
  2. perceptive
  3. gifted
  1. excitable
  2. exceptional
  3. headstrong
  1. versatile
  2. mischievous
  3. inexperienced
  1. apt
  2. imaginative
  3. good-looking
  1. disobedient
  2. mature
  3. thoughtless
  1. sensitive

rhymes (2)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. atrocious
  1. ferocious

reverse dictionary (14)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. precocious
  2. phthisergate
  1. proterical
  2. towardly
  1. poet-sucker
  2. precoce
  1. precociously
  2. precocity
  1. forward
  2. Lolita
  1. precociousness
  2. old-fashioned
  1. pedogenesis
  2. neogamy

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. characterized by unusually early development or maturity
  1. SATWOTD

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Lists

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Comments

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  • andystardust "I judged, then, that the children of that time were extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found afterwards abundant verification of that opinion."
    - H.G. Wells, The Time Machine Dec 17, 2008

  • uselessness How you will sound if you say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious loud enough. Dec 22, 2006

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‘precocious’ has been looked up 5742 times, loved by 17 people, added to 128 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 16.