child

A young person who has not yet become an adult.

• The child is asleep.
• The children played outside after school.
• How old was your child when she learned to read?

Similar words: kid, youngster

Opposites: adult

Common phrases: young child, small child, child development

Someone’s son or daughter, whatever their age.

• She has one child.
• All their children have left home.
• His eldest child is forty now.

How to use it: someone’s child (Their youngest child is now a doctor.)

Similar words: offspring, son or daughter

Opposites: parent

Common phrases: only child, adult child, eldest child

A person whose ideas and behaviour were strongly shaped by a particular time, place, or experience.

• He is a child of his time.
• As children of the war, they valued peace.
• She remains a child of the culture that shaped her.

How to use it: a child of something (She is a child of the digital age.)

Similar words: product

Common phrases: child of someone, child of something

A data item, object, or process that belongs under another in a computer system.

• This node has one child.
• The program created two child processes.
• Each child inherits settings from its parent.

Opposites: parent

Common phrases: child node, child process, child object

Something that was produced by a particular idea, event, or effort.

• The book was a child of hope.
• This invention is the child of years of research.
• Their new festival was a child of that cultural movement.

How to use it: a child of something (The project is a child of their shared imagination.)

Similar words: product, result

Common phrases: child of something, a child of

In the phrase with child, expecting a baby.

• She was with child.
• They learned that the princess was with child.
• He returned to find his wife with child.

How to use it: be with child (The queen was with child again.)

Common phrases: with child, be with child