callow
\n
\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 13, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n callow • \\KAL-oh\\ • adjective
\n
Callow is a synonym of immature used to describe someone, especially a young person, who does not have much experience and does not know how to behave like an adult. Like the word immature, callow is often used disapprovingly.
\n\n// The novel\u2019s plot involves a callow youth who eventually learns the value of hard work and self-reliance.
\n\n\n \n \n\n Examples:
\n
\u201cLowery opted to make Gawain a callow young man who aspires to earn the right to join the Knights of the Round Table by proving his honor and bravery\u2014confronting some hard truths about himself along his journey.\u201d \u2014 Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 31 July 2021
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
\n
Although callow birds\u2014that is, featherless, baby birds\u2014are quite visibly (and audibly) hungry for the world beyond their nest, they are just as visibly immature, far from ready to step, or hop, into it. This meaning of callow isn\u2019t common (we only define the word this way in our Unabridged dictionary), but it both links the word directly to its origin, the Old English word calu, meaning \u201cbald,\u201d and to today\u2019s more common use in describing someone possessed of youthful naivet\xe9. Calu eventually fledged into callow with the same \u201cbald, hairless\u201d meaning, but was applied to bald land too\u2014that is, land denuded of vegetation or not producing it in the first place. By the 16th century, callow had expanded beyond the literal sense of \u201clacking hair or flora\u201d to its avian use of \u201clacking feathers\u201d as well as to today\u2019s familiar application to people. Callow now is most often used to suggest the inexperience or immaturity of young people brimming with confidence but still, figuratively, unfledged.
\n\n \n