[f. as prec. + -NESS.] Childish quality.
1. Quality or conduct natural to a child.
1526. Tindale, 1 Cor. xiii. 11. I put awaye all childesshnes.
1607. Shaks., Cor., V. iii. 157. Speake thou Boy, Perhaps thy childishnesse will moue him more Then can our Reasons.
1833. Lamb, Elia, Pop. Fallacies, xii. The children of the very poor do not prattle … there is no childishness in [their] dwellings.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, viii. 246. For the enjoyment of Aristophanic fun a sort of southern childishness and swiftness of gleeful apprehension is required.
2. Quality or conduct not befitting mature age; puerility, silliness.
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet., 9. Gentle in behavor without childishenes.
1665. J. Spencer, Prophecies, 29. From a weakness and childishness of temper.
1742. Richardson, Pamela, II. 293. I cannot bear this silly Childishness.
1883. A. Roberts, O. T. Revision, x. 214. The most stupendous mass of childishness and folly.
b. (with. pl.) A piece of childishness. rare.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, ix. 120. What a childishnesse is this?
1725. Bailey, Erasm. Colloq., Pref. Follies and Childishnesses.
† 3. = CHILDHOOD. rare. Obs.
1660. Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur. (1682), II. 17. Those years which are esteem’d the confines of Childishness and Manhood.
4. Second childishness: the childishness incident to old age, ‘second childhood’ (see CHILDHOOD 4).
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. vii. 165. Last Scene of all … Is second childishnesse, and meere obliuion.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, II. xix. The lean and slippered pantaloon in his second childishness.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 74. The old man doth not become a child by means of his second childishness.
1878. Mrs. H. Wood, Pomeroy Ab. (ed. 3), 449. The revelation made … by Naomi in her second childishness.
