callow
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
business
construction
entomology
geography
geology
manufacturing
masonry
mining
natural-sciences
ornithology
zoology
Etymology: From Middle English calwe (“(adjective) bald; (noun) bald person”), from Old English calu, caluw (“without hair, bald, callow”), from Proto-West Germanic *kalu, from Proto-Germanic *kalwaz (“bald; bare, naked”), and then either:
* from Proto-Indo-European *gol(H)-wo- (“bald; bare, naked”), from *gelH- (“head; naked”); or
* from Latin calvus (“bald”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kl̥H- (“bald; naked”).
If not borrowed from Latin, Grimm’s law indicates that the Latin word is likely a false cognate, along with Persian کل (kal) and Sanskrit कुल्व (kulvá).
cognates
* Dutch kaal (“bald”)
* German kahl (“bald”)
* German Low German kahl (“bald”)
* Russian го́лый (gólyj, “bare, naked, nude”)
* Swedish kal, kalka (“bald”)
* West Frisian keal (“bald”)
Inflected forms:
form: callower
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: more callow
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: callowest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: most callow
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: callows
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Immature, inexperienced, or naive.
pos: adj
examples: Through both the volumes, there is not a single original sentiment, description, or incident, and yet a callow reader may peruse it without perceiving any thing is wanting.
gloss: having no hair; bald, bare, hairless.
pos: adj
examples: Then there was a little Chinese in full azure costume, with long gesticulating arms, and large callow head, who pertinaciously threw in his squeaky plea for Confucius in the most unsyntactical French.
There was a sense abroad as he spoke that the world was rocking together to great music, and this callow-headed professor by the table had caught a note of it.
This time it held a callow-headed baby in a pink frock.
These hands were marked of hard work and yet soft enough to tenderly hold the baby's little callow head.
gloss: Of a brick: unburnt.
pos: adj
gloss: Of a young bird, or (part of) its body: having not developed feathers yet; featherless, unfledged; hence, of other animals or their bodies: having no fur or hair; furless, hairless, unfurred.
pos: adj
examples: […] Calais and Zetes had no beard upon their chin, / They both were callow. But aſſone as haire did once begin / In likeneſſe of a yellow Downe upon their cheekes to ſprout, / Then (euen as comes to paſſe in Birdes) the feathers budded out / Togither on their pinyons too, and ſpreaded round about / On both their ſides.
[T]hey [who] be ſomevvhat ſlovv of apprehenſion and idle vvithall, are verie troubleſome unto their teachers, and importune them overmuch: […] reſembling herein young callovv birds vvhich are not yet fethered and fledg'd, but alvvaies gaping tovvard the bill of the damme, and ſo by their good vvils vvould have nothing given them, but that vvhich hath beene chevved and prepared already.
A Snake of Size immenſe aſcends a Tree, / And in the leafie Summit, ſpy'd a Neſt, / VVhich o'er her Callovv Young, a Sparrovv preſs'd.
Th' appointed Time / VVith pious Toil fulfill'd, the callovv Young / VVarm'd, and expanded into perfect Life, / Their brittle Bondage break, and come to Light, / A helpleſs Family, demanding Food / VVith conſtant Clamour.
Her [the desert pelican's] young in the refreshing bath / Sported all wantonness; / Dipt down their callow heads, / Filled the swoln membrane from their plumeless throat / Pendant, […]
[T]he instant the callow brood are fledged, they are driven from the nest, and forced to shift for themselves in the wide world.
When first born it [a kangaroo] is indeed more feeble and incapable of voluntary action of any kind than a callow bird, blind and hairless, covered with a delicate pink skin, through which many of the blood vessels can be distinctly seen, about an inch in length, and no more like the future kangaroo than a mouse—a transparent little gelatinous creature so fragile that it cannot be handled however carefully without danger to its life.
In fact many of our fresh water fish are somewhat Chinese in their tastes, for I have frequently used, with great success, the callow and hairless young of field-mice as bait for mascalonge, pike, pickerel, bass and sheep'shead; and I have no doubt that the brook trout would readily take the same delicacy.
[I]ts [the water-vole's] congener of the land (A[gricola] agrestis) breeds in myriads over the adjoining meadows, hollowing out its nest just enough under the sward for its hairless callow young to be clear of the dangerous scythe-blade.
gloss: Of a young bird, or (part of) its body: having not developed feathers yet; featherless, unfledged; hence, of other animals or their bodies: having no fur or hair; furless, hairless, unfurred.
pos: adj
tags: figuratively
examples: Those three young men are particularly callow youths.
Try to remember the kind of September / When you were a tender and callow fellow / Try to remember and if you remember / Then follow
Bernard, there are only 630 MPs, if one party has just over 300 MPs it forms a government—of that 300, 100 are too old and too silly, 100 are too young and too callow, which leaves just about a hundred MPs to fill 100 government posts.
The restless scrolling, the clammy self-reproach afterwards … we could recognise that as addiction quite easily, but the mathematical mechanism for having created it makes horrible sense ([Jaron] Lanier isn't that interested in culprits, though he finds all of Silicon Valley pretty callow).
Barça [FC Barcelona] had frozen. [Trent] Alexander-Arnold saw it, caught Divock Origi's eyes and pinged the perfect cross for a double-take of a winning goal. This was a 20-year-old local lad, product of down the road, out-thinking Barcelona, making them look like callow, pigeon-chested schoolboys.
gloss: In the life cycle of an animal: newly born or hatched; juvenile.
pos: adj
tags: broadly
examples: a callow bee
gloss: Synonym of teneral (“of certain insects or other arthropods such as spiders: lacking colour or firmness just after ecdysis (“shedding of the exoskeleton”)”).
pos: adj
tags: broadly
gloss: Of land: having no vegetation; bare.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: [T]heſe Lands are not ſvvardy enough to bear clean tillage, nor callovv or light enough to lie to get ſvvard, […]
gloss: Synonym of teneral (“an insect or other arthropod such as a spider which has just undergone ecdysis (“shedding of the exoskeleton”) and so lacks colour or firmness”).
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: An alluvial flat.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The upper layer of rubble in a quarry which has to be removed to reach the material to be mined.
pos: noun
tags: UK
archaic
countable
regional
uncountable
gloss: A young bird which has not developed feathers yet; a nestling.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
gloss: A young bird which has not developed feathers yet; a nestling.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
obsolete
uncountable
gloss: Synonym of topsoil (“upper layer of soil”).
pos: noun
tags: East-Anglia
countable
obsolete
uncountable
Derived words: callowly
callowness
callowy
encallow
encallowing
uncallow
Translations: