a. [OE. cildisc, f. cild CHILD: see -ISH1.]
1. Of, belonging or proper to a child or to childhood; childlike; infantile, juvenile.
a. 1000. Cædmon’s Gen., 2318 (Gr.). Cildisc wesan.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 1168. Wole ye the childische jalousye countirfete?
c. 1440. Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), I. lxxi. Thyse ensamples arn chyldisshe.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 65. This dwelling, wheare rests thee childish Iulus.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. vii. 162. His bigge manly voice, Turning againe toward childish trebble.
1774. J. Wright, in Athenæum (1886), 10 July, 56/2. The youngest has … such a sweet childish expression.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, I. 2. I feel … my father’s hand … Stroke out my childish curls.
2. Exhibiting unduly the characteristics of childhood; not befitting mature age; puerile, silly.
a. 1420. Occleve, De Reg. Princ., xxviii. (1860), 8. After thy childisshe chere and froward conceyt.
1481. Caxton, Reynard, xxxii. (Arb.), 94. Ar ye so moche chyldyssh that ye byleue this false and subtyl shrewe.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., V. iv. 38. What cannot be auoided, ’Twere childish weakenesse to lament.
1665. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., 23. The distinction … is not … so childish and impertinent as our Author would have believed.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 217. The childish titles of aristocracy.
1867. Chamb. Jrnl., 23 Nov., 739/1. ‘Childish’ and ‘childlike’ when applied to adults—the former implying censure, and the latter the reverse.
1884. Chr. World, 30 Oct., 834/1. Child-like faith is not necessarily childish faith.
3. Comb. as childish-minded, -mindedness.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., I. iii. 142. I am too childish foolish for this World.
1623. Bacon, Lett., in Wks. (1850), II. 257 (T.). I love birds, as the king doth, and have some childish-mindedness, wherein we shall consent.
1701. Steele, Tatler, No. 83, ¶ 2. Neither Childish-young, nor Beldam-old.
