childhood
noun
Simple meaning
The time during which one is a child, from between infancy and puberty.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
chyldhuudSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃaɪldhʊd
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
chiefly uncountable
The state of being a child.
The time during which one is a child, from between infancy and puberty.
The state of a child between infancy and adolescence
by extension
The early stages of development of something.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The state of being a child.
Used this way, childhood is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use childhood
- “He often reminisces about his happy childhood memories growing up.”
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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.