English

Adjective

puerile ‎(comparative more puerile, superlative most puerile)

1. Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer: puellile.
2. Childish; trifling; silly.
   • (Can we date this quote?) De Quincey:

     The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents.

   • 1927, Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, page 79:

     From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.

   • 2014 April 12, Simon Russell Beale, “Why Shakespeare always says something new: As the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth approaches, the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale explains his secrets [print version: The king and I]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London, page R7:

     […] I have always found it hard that Hamlet, a character that I love and admire, is guilty of a puerile misogyny and, perhaps, more worryingly, of the unnecessary deaths of his old friends from university, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Synonyms

• (childish): juvenile, silly, trifling

Derived terms

• puerilism
• puerility

Translations

See also

• boyish
• yobbish
• youthful

Italian

Etymology

From Latin puerīlis

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pwe'ri.le/

Adjective

puerile m, f ‎(masculine and feminine plural puerili)

1. puerile, childish, juvenile, boyish
2. (rare) children's (attribute), baby (attribute)

Synonyms

• infantile

Related terms

• puerilmente
• puerilicultura
• puerilità
• puerilismo
• puerizia

Anagrams

• pelurie

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /pu.eˈriː.le/, [pʊ.ɛˈriː.ɫɛ]

Adjective

puerīle

1. nominative neuter singular of puerīlis
2. accusative neuter singular of puerīlis
3. vocative neuter singular of puerīlis

References

• PUERILE in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)