Puerile may call to mind qualities of youth and immaturity, but the term itself is no spring chicken. On the contrary, it's been around for more than three centuries, and its predecessors in French and Latin, the adjectives puéril and puerilis, respectively, are far older. Those two terms have the same basic meaning as the English word puerile, and they both trace to the Latin noun puer, meaning "boy" or "child." Nowadays, puerile can describe the acts or utterances of an actual child, but it more often refers (usually with marked disapproval) to occurrences of childishness where adult maturity would be expected or preferred.
told the teenagers that such puerile behavior would not be tolerated during the ceremony
allowed the company to be taken over by a bunch of puerile whippersnappers fresh out of business school
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Lamar and his family, in this reading, are Edenic figures, inaugurating a new sort of American iconography, descended from Wood and Parks but breaking from them as well, born from the aftermath of a great—if also sometimes regrettably puerile—battle.—Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 11 July 2024 Trump’s supporters turn the tables on his puerile critics.—Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 15 May 2024 The whole matter is puerile, and Sheriff Gahler should accept he’s met his match in Cassilly.—Aegis Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 29 Mar. 2024 The reflexive response to the sight of André Onana standing, yet again, with his head bowed and his shoulders slumped after Manchester United’s gloriously puerile draw with Galatasaray on Wednesday is sympathy.—Rory Smith, New York Times, 1 Dec. 2023 See all Example Sentences for puerile
Word History
Etymology
French or Latin; French puéril, from Latin puerilis, from puer boy, child; akin to Sanskrit putra son, child and perhaps to Greek pais boy, child — more at few
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