Definition of "child"

child¹

/t͡ʃaɪld/

noun
plural children or (dialectal or archaic) childer
1. (broadly) A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority).
  Quotations
  And not just the children, teenagers too. Chuck wants a football, Kathleen a tattoo.
  2003 Powerpuff Girls: 'Twas the Fight Before Christmas (narration)
  It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.
  2013 June 7, Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalisation is about taxes too”, in The Guardian Weekly‎, volume 188, number 26, page 19
  1. (pediatrics, sometimes, in a stricter sense) A kid aged 1 to 11 years, whereas neonates are aged 0 to 1 month, infants are aged 1 month to 12 months, and adolescents are aged 12 years to 18 years.
2. (with possessive) One's direct descendant by birth, regardless of age; one's offspring; a son or daughter.
3. (cartomancy) The thirteenth Lenormand card.
4. (figurative) A figurative offspring, particularly:
  1. A person considered a product of a place or culture, a member of a tribe or culture, regardless of age.
    Quotations
    For more than forty years, he preached the creed of art and beauty. He was heir to the ancient wisdom of Israel, a child of Germany, a subject of Great Britain, later an American citizen, but in truth a citizen of the world.
    1984, Mary Jane Matz, The Many Lives of Otto Kahn: A Biography, page 5
    Plash-Goo was of the children of the giants, whose sire was Uph. And the lineage of Uph had dwindled in bulk for the last five hundred years, till the giants were now no more than fifteen foot high; but Uph ate elephants […]
    2009, Edward John Moreton Dunsany, Tales of Wonder, page 64
  2. Anything derived from or caused by something.
    Quotations
    Poverty, disease, and despair are the children of war.
    1991, Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
  3. (computing) A data item, process, or object which has a subservient or derivative role relative to another.
    Quotations
    The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf).
    2011, John Mongan, Noah Kindler, Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed
5. Alternative form of childe (“youth of noble birth”)
6. (mathematics, programming) A subordinate node of a tree.
7. (obsolete, specifically) A female child, a girl.
  Quotations
  A boy, or a Childe I wonder?
  c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene iii], page 288, column 2

child²

/t͡ʃaɪld/

verb
third-person singular simple present childs, present participle childing, simple past and past participle childed
1. (archaic, transitive, intransitive) To give birth; to beget or procreate.
  Quotations
  My liefe (ſayd ſhe) ye know, that long ygo, Whileſt ye in durance dwelt, ye to me gaue A little mayde, the which ye chylded tho ; The ſame againe if now ye liſt to haue, The ſame is yonder Lady, whom high God did ſaue.
  1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, stanza 17, page 512
  And from his fertill hollow wombe forth ran, (Clad in rare weedes and ſtrange habiliment) A Nymph, for age able to goe to man, An hundreth plants beſide (euen in his ſight) Childed an hundreth Nymphes, ſo great, ſo dight: […]
  1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Eighteenth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, stanza 26, page 320
  […] But then the mind much ſufferance doth or'e ſcip, When griefe hath mates,and bearing fellowſhip : How light and portable my paine ſeemes now, When that which makes me bend, makes the King bow, He childed as I fathered,Tom away, Marke the high noyſes and thy ſelfe bewray, […]
  c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, [Act III, scene v]

Definition of "child"

child1

noun

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child2

verb

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child¹

child²