Word of the Day

: August 12, 2021

callow

adjective KAL-oh

What It Means

Callow means “lacking adult sophistication.” It is used to describe a young person who does not have much experience and does not know how to behave like an adult. See the entry >

// The drill sergeant's task is to train the callow recruits.

callow in Context

"In her letters, Higgison had noticed, she no longer signed her name on a card slipped inside the envelope…. Largely gone, too, were the callow signatures of 'Your Gnome' and 'Your Scholar.' Now she signed her name with a single word: 'Dickinson.' That is who she had become." — Martha Ackmann, The Atlantic, 23 June 2020

"As [Christopher Plummer] made a name for himself ... he found work on tours with the last of the great actress-managers and divas…. He played callow youth to their imperious grandeur…." — Helen Shaw, Vulture, 19 Feb. 2021

Did You Know?

You might not expect a relationship between the word callow and baldness, but callow comes from calu, a word that meant "bald" in Middle English and Old English. By the 17th century, callow had come to mean "without feathers" and was applied to young birds not yet ready for flight. The term was also used for those who hadn't yet spread their wings in a figurative sense.