puerile

See also: puérile

English

WOTD – 9 February 2007

Etymology

From Latin puerīlis (“childish”), from puer (“child, boy”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpjʊə.ɹaɪl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpjʊɹɪl/, /ˈpjʊɹaɪl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Adjective

puerile (comparative more puerile, superlative most puerile)

1. Childish; trifling; silly.

   Synonyms: juvenile, silly, trifling; see also Thesaurus:childish, Thesaurus:insignificant

   • 1850, Thomas De Quincey, French and English Manners (originally published in Hogg's Instructor

     The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents.

   • 1927, Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, page 79:

     From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.

   • 2014 April 12, Simon Russell Beale, “Why Shakespeare always says something new: As the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth approaches, the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale explains his secrets [print version: The king and I]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎^[1], London, page R7:

     […] I have always found it hard that Hamlet, a character that I love and admire, is guilty of a puerile misogyny and, perhaps, more worryingly, of the unnecessary deaths of his old friends from university, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

   • 1930 July, West Kirby, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Preface (page 9 of the Dover 1968 reprint of L&FM and Star Maker):

     Today we should welcome, and even study, every serious attempt to envisage the future of our race, not merely to grasp the very diverse and often tragic possibilities that confront us, but also that we may familiarize ourselves with the certainty that many of our cherished ideals would seem puerile to more developed minds.

2. Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; compare puellile. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• puerilism
• puerility
• puerilization

Translations

childish — see childish

characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys

• Bulgarian: момчешки (bg) (momčeški)
• Ido: puerala (io)
• Norwegian Bokmål: barnslig
• Norwegian Nynorsk: barnsleg
• Russian: мальчи́шеский (ru) (malʹčíšeskij)
• Spanish: pueril (es)
• Ukrainian: хлоп'ячий m (xlopʺjačyj)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Italian: ^{(please verify)} puerile (it), ^{(please verify)} infantile (it)
• Latin: ^{(please verify)} puerīlis

See also

• boyish
• yobbish
• youthful

Anagrams

• pie rule

German

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

puerile

1. inflection of pueril:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Etymology

From Latin puerīlis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pu.eˈri.le/
• Rhymes: -ile
• Hyphenation: pu‧e‧rì‧le

Adjective

puerile (plural puerili)

1. puerile, childish, juvenile, boyish
2. (rare, relational) children's, baby

Synonyms

• infantile

Related terms

• puerilicultura
• puerilismo
• puerilità
• puerilmente
• puerizia

 

Anagrams

• pelurie

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /pu.eˈriː.le/, [puɛˈriːɫ̪ɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /pu.eˈri.le/, [pueˈriːle]

Adjective

puerīle

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of puerīlis

References

• puerile in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)