rare. [f. CHILD sb. + -NESS.] † a. Childish humor, childishness (obs.). b. Child quality, being a child (cf. BREADNESS).
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 170. He … with his varying child-nesse, cures in me Thoughts, that would thick my blood.
1856. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 289. Aren’t you a spoiled child, without the childness and the spoiling.
1866. G. Macdonald, Unspoken Serm., i. (1884), 12. Childlike enough to embrace a child for the sake of his childness.
