# childhood

Pronunciation: say "CHYLD-huud" /ˈt͡ʃaɪldhʊd/

## Noun

1. The period of a person's life from infancy until puberty, during which one is a child.
   - Simple: The years when a person is a child, between being a baby and becoming a teenager.
   - _He moved house six times during his childhood, never staying long in one place._
   - _Vaccinations given in childhood protect against several serious diseases._
2. The state or condition of being a child.
   - Simple: The condition of being a child rather than a grown-up.
   - _There is an innocence to childhood that many adults wish they could recover._
   - _War and poverty stripped these children of any real sense of childhood._
3. The period when something is new and still in the first phase of its development.
   - Simple: The first stages when something new is still growing and developing.
   - _Photography was in its childhood when these grainy portraits were taken._
   - _The company's childhood was marked by constant experiments and frequent failures._

## Origin

From Middle English "childhode," from Old English "ċildhād," which breaks down as "child" + "-hood." It is related to German "Kindheit" ("childhood").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/childhood (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).