infants
- 1Plural of infant.
The clinic offers free checkups for infants under one year old.
Premature infants often need extra medical attention after birth.
Note
A regular -s plural that carries every sense of infant at once. Usually it means babies, but it can also mean minors, and in British, Irish and Commonwealth schools it means the youngest pupils. That school use sits close to the school section, where the plural names the section itself rather than the children in it. An older meaning, a noble youth, is now obsolete.
- 2The section of a primary school for younger children, typically reception or kindergarten and grades one and two.
She has taught in the infants for over a decade and loves it.
Children move up from the infants to the juniors around age seven.
Note
A British and Australian school word, almost always paired with juniors, the stage that follows it: children move from infants to juniors. Like the name of a class, it often drops the article, as in "still in infants", though "the infants" is common too. Being "in infants" means being in this stage of school, not being a baby. Key Stage 1 is the administrative synonym, and infant school is a close equivalent.
infants is a form of infant
infant, noun: A very young child, from birth to between six months and two years old, who needs almost constant care and attention. Full entry
- Forms
- infantinfants plural
- Spelling
- infant → infants: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /s/.
Use it in a sentence
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