Synonyms of callow

callow

adjective

ˈka-(ˌ)lō 

as in inexperienced

lacking in adult experience or maturity

a story about a callow youth who learns the value of hard work and self-reliance

Synonyms & Similar Words

• inexperienced
• immature
• adolescent
• young
• juvenile
• unformed
• puerile
• unfledged
• unripe
• youthful
• unripened
• green
• naive
• childish
• infantile
• raw
• boyish
• innocent
• wet behind the ears
• babyish
• girlish
• youngish
• maidenly
• infantine
• ingenuous
• infantilized
• virginal
• unsophisticated
• unseasoned
• untried
• untrained
• kiddish
• unknowing
• tender
• juvenescent

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• mature
• experienced
• adult
• ripe
• advanced
• precocious
• grown-up
• sophisticated
• worldly
• knowing
• savvy
• worldly-wise

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of callow

Its most melancholy scene of all involves Willy Loman, a traveling salesman who has given his unnamed company the best years of his now weary life, walking into the head office only to be humiliated by the callow young man who now runs his company and could not give a damn about him. — Chris Jones, New York Daily News, 10 Apr. 2026

Johnson empathizes with callow Nets Brooklyn used a pair of rookies in the starting lineup (Nolan Traore and Egor Demin) and had two more in the bench rotation (Danny Wolf and Drake Powell). — Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 26 Feb. 2026

The younger versions of Noah and Allie, callow and skittish, are laid out in broad strokes. — Theater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2026

At a moment when American architecture was caught between an exhausted Modernism and a callow Postmodernism, Frank Gehry showed the way forward. — Martin Filler, The New York Review of Books, 12 Dec. 2025

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