Other forms: children
A child is a young person who is not yet grown up. A young child, two children, a child of six.
The plural is children, which is a double plural — an old plural childer with -en added on top. Kid is the everyday informal word. Child also means somebody's offspring at any age: their youngest child is fifty. Note child benefit, childcare, childhood, childish and childlike — the last two being the same idea with opposite tones. Child's play means something very easy.
1nounchildA young person who is not yet grown up.~54%
“The child at the back had counted every window.”
synonyms: kid, youngster
2nounoffspringSomebody's offspring at any age.~46%
“Their youngest child is about fifty-two.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
child is a young person.
Also accepted in games: kid
Old English cild descends from a root meaning womb or foetus. The plural children was formed twice over: cildru was already plural, and Middle English added -en on the end because the old ending had stopped feeling like one.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵelt- — womb
Proto-Germanic
*kelþaz — womb; fetus
Proto-West Germanic
*kilþ
Old English
ċild
Middle English
child
English, today
child
From Middle English child, from Old English ċild, from Proto-West Germanic kilþ, kelþ, from Proto-Germanic kelþaz (“womb; fetus”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵelt- (“womb”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European gel- (“to ball up, amass”). Cognate with Danish kuld (“brood, litter”), Swedish kull (“brood, litter”), Icelandic kelta, kjalta (“lap”), Gothic 𐌺𐌹𐌻𐌸𐌴𐌹 (“womb”), Sanskrit जर्त, जर्तु (“vulva”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA