Other forms: childhoods
Childhood is the years of your life when you were young. A happy childhood, childhood friend, since childhood.
The idea that it is a distinct protected stage rather than early adulthood is historically recent in the West, and compulsory schooling and child labour law are what made it so. Childhood memories before about the age of three are almost entirely lost. Note that -hood is the old ending meaning state or condition, as in neighbourhood.
1nounchildhoodThe years of life when a person is young.
“She spent her childhood in a small village by the sea.”
childhood is a stage of life.
Old English cildhad is child plus -had, an ending meaning state or condition. Neighbourhood and priesthood use the same ending.
Old English
ċildhād — childhood
Middle English
childhode
English, today
childhood
From Middle English childhode, childhod, from Old English ċildhād (“childhood”). by surface analysis, child + -hood. Compare dialectal Dutch kindheid (“childishness”), German Low German Kinnerheid (“childhood”), and German Kindheit (“childhood”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA