CHERUB (cherubim)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: cherubim   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cherub mean? 

• CHERUB (noun)
  The noun CHERUB has 2 senses:

1. a sweet innocent baby

2. an angel of the second order whose gift is knowledge; usually portrayed as a winged child

  Familiarity information: CHERUB used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CHERUB (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sweet innocent baby

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("cherub" is a kind of...):

babe; baby; infant (a very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An angel of the second order whose gift is knowledge; usually portrayed as a winged child

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("cherub" is a kind of...):

angel (spiritual being attendant upon God)

 Context examples 

As he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face—like a conventional cherubim—he looked the queerest object I ever beheld.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His might have been a cherub's mouth, had not the full, sensuous lips a trick, under stress, of drawing firmly across the teeth.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Go, pick up my things, like a cherub, as you are, said Jo, dropping down under a maple tree, which was carpeting the bank with crimson leaves.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

A chanting cherub adorned the cover of the sugar bucket, and attempts to portray Romeo and Juliet supplied kindling for some time.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You're a perfect cherub!

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)