CHILDISH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does childish mean? 

• CHILDISH (adjective)
  The adjective CHILDISH has 1 sense:

1. indicating a lack of maturity

  Familiarity information: CHILDISH used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CHILDISH (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Indicating a lack of maturity

Synonyms:

childish; infantile

Context example:

infantile behavior

Similar:

immature (characteristic of a lack of maturity)

Derivation:

childishness (a property characteristic of a child)

 Context examples 

“My love!” (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish ways.) “He is the best creature!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Childish and immaterial as the topic was, the quality of their reasoning was still more childish and immaterial.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you. Here is an unexplained one. See what you can make of that, friend Watson.”

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

From far off he could hear a childish treble singing: "Waltz me around again, Willie, around, around, around."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) Does the patient seem to have a childish sense of humor with a tendency to giggle or laugh inappropriately (such as when something unfortunate happens to others)?

(NPI - Seem to Have a Childish Sense of Humor, NCI Thesaurus)

Time had altered her since I last beheld her; it had endowed her with loveliness surpassing the beauty of her childish years.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She didn't like dolls, fairy tales were childish, and one couldn't draw all the time.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) Does he/she play childish pranks such as pinching or playing "keep away" for the fun of it?

(NPI - Play Childish Pranks, NCI Thesaurus)

To my childish imagination it was a personal affair, and I for ever saw my father and this clean-shaven, thin-lipped man swaying and reeling in a deadly, year-long grapple.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)