Standard Lemma guide

Spock-marked

adj · 1 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

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1

adj

Meaning 1

Spoiled by an overly permissive upbringing.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: derogatory

Examples

  • 1970, Raymond Apthorpe, University of Sussex. Institute of Development Studies, People Planning and Development Studies: Some Reflections on Social Planning Governments might, like those of America and Canada, produce cheap brochures explaining to parents how to bring up honest, unanxious, kindly, non-bed-wetting, co-operative children. And that in rich countries with high literacy levels such advice has its effect can hardly be doubted by anyone who has had recent contact in universities with the first Spock-marked generation of middle-class children trained in habits of autonomy from an early age. ('No, darling, it's up to you. At two and a half you are old enough to choose yourself whether to wear trousers or a skirt.')

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Blend of Spock + pockmarked, in reference to the influential approach of Benjamin Spock (1903–1998), American pediatrician.