Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A puerile character or condition; boyishness; childishness.
- n. The time of childhood; specifically, in civil law, the period of life from the age of seven years to that of fourteen.
- n. That which is puerile; what is characteristic of or done in boyhood; hence, a childish or silly act, thought, or expression.
Wiktionary
- n. the state, quality, or condition of being childish or puerile
- n. that which is puerile or childish; especially, an expression which is flat, insipid, or silly
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality of being puerile; childishness; puerileness.
- n. That which is puerile or childish; especially, an expression which is flat, insipid, or silly.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the state of a child between infancy and adolescence
- n. a property characteristic of a child
Etymologies
- From Latin puerīlitās, from puerīlis ("childish, juvenile"), from puer ("boy"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Even in masses of what men have called his puerility there are often germs of immense worth, -- taking years, perhaps, to show life, but sure to be alive at last.”
“They are in some respects notably tame and puerile, -- with a puerility which is not childish simplicity, but a lack of inventive fancy, and which exhibits itself in bald repetition.”
“So while America understandably reels from the screeching puerility that has gripped our capital, we got to get a grip.”
The Huffington Post: Fernando Espuelas: Latinos Must Help Unify America - by Voting in 2012
“It was a sterile mockery, a wholly inadequate stretch into puerility.”
“No, to avoid the slur of puerility, those concerned must put away childish things including utterly banal "talent contests" that appeal to the lowest common denominator in the viewers and readers.”
The Guardian: Letters: Geordies, banality and the truth about Cheryl
“While tumidity desires to transcend the limits of the sublime, the defect which is termed puerility is the direct antithesis of elevation, for it is utterly low and mean and in real truth the most ignoble vice of style.”
“As it was, the introduction of such evidence was an insult to their intelligence, and she had sufficient faith in their manhood and perspicacity to know that such puerility would not sway them in the verdict they were to give.”
“She was stung by his words into realization of the puerility of her act, and yet she felt that he had magnified it unduly and was consequently resentful.”
“Oh, how she longed to stroll the glossy hospitals halls with Arthur and go over the day's operations; his deft penetration into the subarachnoid space, his extraction of the waxing hipotomix, his keen observation of the puerility of the cerebellopontine angle.”
“Messages bearing my name and containing crudity, puerility or metaphorical threat, I entrust to the cautious vetting of your detective talents.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘puerility’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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suzyg's Words
brandish, recompence, shopping, dichotomy, paradigm, reverse osmosis, anyway, despite, drunk, degenerate, insipid, grateful and 438 more...
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Lolita
Words to remember from Nabokov's "Lolita"
lurid, limned, concordance, puerility, variorum, perspicacious, exigency, acrostic, solipsism, mnemosyne, involution, fatidic and 227 more...
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Oblivion
By David Foster Wallace
ossify, reverie, hypergeometric, emetic, mien, cruciform, accreted, perpend, rheostat, predilections, coccyx, hirsute and 178 more...
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2011 July
New words
correspondent, promulgate, transgress, trite, ravine, corespondent, contrivance, contrive, expedient, conducive, clairvoyance, difform and 184 more...
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Physiological Terms
Terms used in physiology
contabescence, infix, instill, demulcent, pachystichous, pachyhaemous, adrenal, suprarenal, adrenocorticotropic, remedial, flaccid, phosphene and 136 more...
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Pseudorandom words
Words found through Wordie's random word function. I didn't take phrases, foreign, misspelled, or madeupical words, so I looked at about 200 words to assemble this list.
I was surprise...ishkabibble, jericho, inopercular, oppositional, puerility, chronometer, cavern, cisternae, osteospermum, boxcar, misandry, savannah and 88 more...
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☾
nymph, dulcet, vertiginous, diaphanous, puerility, solecism, uranist, mellifluous, nubile, labyrinthian, concupiscence, salacious and 39 more...
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