Standard Lemma guide

puerile

adj · 4 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈpjʊə.ɹaɪl/
  • General-American: /ˈpjʊɹɪl/
  • General-American: /ˈpjʊɹaɪl/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Australia: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: P Y UW0 R IY1 L Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Childish; trifling; silly.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • 1850, Thomas De Quincey, French and English Manners (originally published in Hogg's Instructor The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: juvenile, silly, trifling, babish, babyish, bairnish, childish, dootsie, hissy, lactifluous, infantile, infantine, immature, kiddish, milky, puerile, base, contemptible, floccinaucinihilipilificatious, foolish, for the birds, futile, frivolous, idle, ignorable, immaterial, inconsequential, inconsiderable, indifferent, insignificant, like a fart in a windstorm, meager, mean, minor, miserable, negligible, nothingburger, nondescript, null, paltry, petty, picayune, picayunish, piddling, piddly, pissant, pissass, piteous, pitiful, pointless, simple, slight, ticky-tacky, tin-pot, trivial, two-bit, unimportant, unweighty, vain, worthless, wretched

Antonyms: none provided

2

adj

Meaning 2

Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; compare puellile.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

adjective

Meaning 3

of or characteristic of a child

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • puerile breathing

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

4

adjective satellite

Meaning 4

displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • adolescent insecurity
  • jejune responses to our problems
  • their behavior was juvenile
  • puerile jokes

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: adolescent, jejune, juvenile

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From Latin puerīlis (“childish”), from puer (“child, boy”). By surface analysis, puer + -ile.

Across languages

Translations

7 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: момчешки (momčeški) — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
  • Ido: puerala — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
  • Norwegian Bokmål: barnslig — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: barnsleg — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
  • Russian: мальчи́шеский (malʹčíšeskij) — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
  • Spanish: pueril — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
  • Ukrainian: хлоп'ячий (xlopʺjačyj) — characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys