Childhood

How to spell childhood

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce childhood

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does childhood mean?

1. nounThe period of a person's life when they are a child, or the state of being young.

Childhood in a sentence

• She spent her childhood on a farm in the countryside.

• The museum exhibit explored childhood in the nineteenth century.

Where does childhood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descended from the Old English 'cildhad', formed from 'cild', meaning 'child', and 'had', meaning a state, rank, or condition. That ending '-had' is the same element that survives today as the suffix '-hood', which still marks a state of being, as in 'brotherhood', 'neighbourhood', and 'falsehood'. So 'childhood' has always meant simply the condition or period of being a child, and the meaning has stayed remarkably stable for more than a thousand years. The spelling trap is small but real: writers occasionally double the wrong letter or forget the silent agreement of the two parts, but remembering it is plainly 'child' plus 'hood' keeps it secure.

How the word is built

• child (a young person)
• -hood (state or condition)