Citations:man child

English citations of man child

Noun: "(archaic) a young male human; a boy"

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• 1611 — King James Bible, Book of Leviticus, 12:2:

  Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.

• 1623 — William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act I, Scene III:

  I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.

• 1857 — Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, Chapter XXI:

  "In the first place, sir, our theory teaches us to proceed by analogy from the physical to the moral. Are we right there, sir? Now, sir, take a young boy, a young male infant rather, a man-child in short—what sir, I respectfully ask, do you in the first place remark?"

• 1889 — William Morris, The House of the Wolflings, Chapter VI:

  Said the Beaming: “There is no Hall-Sun sitting under our Roof at home to tell true tales concerning the Kindred every day. Yet forsooth from time to time is a word said in our Folk-hall for good or for evil; and who can choose but hearken thereto? And yestereve was a woeful word spoken, and that by a man-child of ten winters.”

• 1973 — John Postgate, "Bat's chance in hell", New Scientist, 5 April 1973:

  Imagine what would happen if a "man child" pill became freely available throughout the world through the World Health Organisation.

• 2000 — Gene Wolfe, "Queen of the Night", in Strange Travelers, Orb (2001), →ISBN, page 163:

  It seemed to the boy that his pounding heart would break his ribs.

  "Look upon me, man-child."

Noun: "(informal, generally derogatory) an adult male considered childish or immature"

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• 1999 — Betty McLellan, Help! I'm Living WIth a Man Boy, Spinifex Press (2006), →ISBN, page 23:

  What is a man-child actually like? To understand the man-child phenomenon, it is necessary to look, first, at the attitudes and behaviour of children generally, and then to place one of those children in a man's body, with all the power and privileges that come with being an adult male.

• 2004 — Glen Macnow & Angelo Cataldi, The Great Philadelphia Sports Debate, Middle Atlantic Press (2004), →ISBN, page 161:

  In the end, Brown said he just couldn't stand another day of trying to run a team with two sets of rules — one for 11 players and the other for the man-child superstar.

• 2005 — Louis Cantor, Dewey and Elvis: The Life and Times of a Rock 'n' Roll Deejay, University of Illinois Press (2005), →ISBN, page 163:

  When together the two were little more than grown-up juveniles, each a man-child concerned only with maximizing newfound fame and fortune through absolute gratification.

• 2006 — Erik E. Esckilsen, The Outside Groove, Walter Lorraine Books (2006), →ISBN, page 239:

  Part of me wanted to disagree with him, but another part wanted to think he was right, to think that Wade — selfish, immature, cocky, man-child Wade — maybe saw something that I'd missed.

• 2009 — J. M. Kearns, Better Love Next Time: How the Relationship That Didn't Last Can Lead You to the One That Will, John Wiley & Sons (2009), →ISBN, unnumbered pages:

  Many of these shows seem not to be about a husband and wife, but a man-child and his mother: the extreme case being Everybody Loves Raymond, where Ray seemed to have two mothers, one of whom he was married to.

• 2010 — Bill Sheehan, Roman Wolfe 2: Classroom Terror, iUniverse (2010), →ISBN, pages 110-111:

  He was, at his roots, a repugnant, irresponsible, immature man-child, devoid of love or concern for Charlie, though he always brought Charlie home from the orphanage on weekends — for religious indoctrination.

• 2011 — Cheryl Faye, Who Said It Would Be Easy?: A Story of Faith, Strebor Books (2011), →ISBN, page 73:

  It was his selfishness that had pushed that beautiful lady out of his life. He had been an immature man-child then, but he couldn't use that excuse anymore.

• 2011 — Barbara Vancheri, "'Arthur' remake doesn't hold charm of Dudley Moore's original", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8 April 2011:

  Thirty years ago, the title character could be an unapologetic drunken playboy, but today, he has to be a man-child who drinks and carouses because his clean-living father died of a heart attack at 44.