child
noun
Simple meaning
One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
chyldIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃaɪld
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
with possessive
One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; one's offspring; a son or daughter.
pediatricssometimesin a stricter sense
A youth aged 1 to 9 years, whereas neonates are aged 0 to 1 month, infants are aged 1 to 12 months, and adolescents are aged 10 to 20 years.
A member of a clan or tribe
A person considered a product of a place or culture, a member of a tribe or culture, regardless of age.
figurative
A figurative offspring, particularly
Alternative letter-case form of child often used when referring to God (Jesus) or another important child who is understood from context.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (with possessive) One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; one's offspring; a son or daughter.
Used this way, child is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- kid , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use child
- “He remained a child in practical matters as long as he lived.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The time of person's life when they are a child.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Court-ordered support paid by one spouse to the other who has custody of the children after the parents are separated.
An administrative unit responsible for social work concerned with the welfare and vocational training of children.
An administrative unit responsible for social work concerned with the welfare and vocational training of children.
The illegal use of children in pornographic pictures or films.
Failure of caretakers to provide adequate emotional and physical care for a child.
A man who has sex (usually sodomy) with a boy as the passive partner.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The parturition process in human beings.
The parturition process in human beings.
The body of a human child.
A bedroom for a child.
A child of your grandson or granddaughter.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: one's direct descendant by birth or regardless of age
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.