childlike adj

1 befitting a young child; "childlike charm" [syn: childly]

2 exhibiting childlike simplicity and credulity; "childlike trust"; "dewy-eyed innocence"; "simple courtesy" [syn: wide-eyed, dewy-eyed, simple]

English

Adjective

1. Of, like, or suitable for a child; meek; submissive.
2. Innocent and trustful; credulous; artless.
3. Of, or like a baby; infantile.

Quotations

• 1859: Henry Barnard, Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism

  And on the other hand, fatherly and childlike feelings in the national spirit, are the sources of all pure national blessings.

• 1894: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Lessings Nathan Der Weise

  He certainly has childlike simplicity, and all the qualities which go to make up a true Christian character.

Related terms

• child
• childish
• childishly
• childlishness
• childlikeness
• childly

References

angelic, artless, babish, babyish, beardless, blameless, bluff, blunt, born yesterday, boyish, boylike, calflike, candid, childish, clear, coltish, confiding, credulous, decrepit, dependent, depending, direct, doddering, doddery, doited, doting, dovelike, faultless, frank, girlish, girllike, guileless, guiltless, immature, in the clear, incorrupt, infantile, infantine, ingenu, ingenuous, innocent, kiddish, lamblike, maiden, maidenly, naive, not guilty, offenseless, open, openhearted, outspoken, plain, prelapsarian, pristine, puerile, puplike, puppyish, puppylike, reliant, relying, reproachless, sans reproche, senile, simple, simplehearted, simpleminded, sincere, single-hearted, single-minded, sinless, trustful, trusting, trusty, unassuming, uncorrupted, undefiled, undissembling, unfallen, unguarded, unlapsed, unreserved, unsophisticated, unsuspecting, unsuspicious, untouched by evil, unwary, with clean hands, without reproach, without suspicion, young, youthful