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infantile

adjective

Simple meaning

Behaving in a silly way like a very young person.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

infuhntil

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɪnfəntɪl

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Of or relating to infants or infancy

  2. Childish; immature.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Of or relating to infants or infancy

Used this way, infantile 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
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use infantile

  • “Infantile paralysis.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

infantile paralysisinfantile autisminfantile sexualityinfantile mortalityinfantile forminfantile experienceinfantile neurosisinfantile disorder

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • infantile amaurotic idiocynounCompound term

    A hereditary disorder of lipid metabolism occurring most frequently in individuals of Jewish descent in eastern Europe.

  • infantile autismnounCompound term

    A rare but serious syndrome of childhood characterized by withdrawal and lack of social responsiveness or interest in others and serious linguistic deficits.

  • infantile fixationnounCompound term

    An abnormal state in which development has stopped prematurely.

  • infantile paralysisnounCompound term

    An acute viral disease marked by inflammation of nerve cells of the brain stem and spinal cord.

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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.