puerility means the state, quality, or condition of being childish or puerile. It carries an Arena rating of 1608, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, puerility ranks #4,498 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #4,840 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #7,989 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #8,502 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
puerility is pronounced /pjʊəˈɹɪl.ə.ti/.
Why “puerility” is a great word
The quality or state of being childishly trivial, foolish, or immature. From Middle English puerilite, from Middle French puérilité and its etymon Latin puerīlitās, from puerīlis ("childish, juvenile"), from puer ("boy"), first recorded in English in the late 15th century. Unlike juvenility, which simply denotes a youthful state, or naivety, which suggests an innocent lack of experience, puerility is a willful regression. It is the petulant stomp of an adult foot, the tedious repetition of a prank that ceased to be funny decades ago, or the smug satisfaction of a playground insult delivered from a boardroom chair—a warmth that is not the open hearth of innocence, but the stale, self-satisfied heat of a prolonged and unbecoming childhood.
Etymology
From Middle English puerilite, from Middle French puérilité and its etymon Latin puerīlitās, from puerīlis (“childish, juvenile”), from puer (“boy”). By surface analysis, puerile + -ity.
noun
- The state, quality, or condition of being childish or puerile.
- That which is puerile or childish; especially, an expression which is insipid or silly.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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