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callow

Pronunciation: /ˈkæləʊ/

The English word “callow” has 16 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Immature, inexperienced, or naive.
  2. Having no hair; bald, bare, hairless.
  3. Of a brick: unburnt.
  4. 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.
  5. Lacking life experience; immature, inexperienced, naive; also, of or relating to something immature or inexperienced.
  6. In the life cycle of an animal: newly born or hatched; juvenile.
  7. Synonym of teneral (“of certain insects or other arthropods such as spiders: lacking colour or firmness just after ecdysis (“shedding of the exoskeleton”)”).
  8. Of land: having no vegetation; bare.
  9. Of land: low-lying and near a river, and thus regularly submerged.

noun

  1. 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”).
  2. An alluvial flat.
  3. The upper layer of rubble in a quarry which has to be removed to reach the material to be mined.
  4. A young bird which has not developed feathers yet; a nestling.
  5. A person lacking life experience; an immature or naive person.
  6. Synonym of topsoil (“upper layer of soil”).
  7. A low-lying meadow near a river which is regularly submerged.

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-…

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