callow

See also: Callow

English

Etymology

From Middle English calwe (“bald”), from Old English calu (“callow, bare, bald”), from Proto-Germanic *kalwaz (“bare, naked, bald”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel(H)wo- (“naked, bald”). Cognate with West Frisian keal (“bald”), Dutch kaal (“bald”), German kahl (“bald”), Russian го́лый (gólyj, “nude”), Latin calvus (“bald”), Persian کل‎ (kal), Sanskrit कुल्व (kulvá).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkæloʊ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkaləʊ/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æləʊ

Adjective

callow (comparative callower or more callow, superlative callowest or most callow)

1. Unfledged (of a young bird).
   • 1717, John Dryden, “Book XII”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 731548838:

     And in the leafy summit spy'd a nest, / Which, o'er the callow young, a sparrow pressed.

2. (by extension) Immature, lacking in life experience.

   Antonyms: mature, experienced

   Those three young men are particularly callow youths.

   • 2018 May 30, Zoe Williams, “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier – review”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     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 (Lanier isn’t that interested in culprits, though he finds all of Silicon Valley pretty callow).

   • 2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Barça had frozen. Alexander-Arnold saw it, caught Divok 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.

3. Lacking color or firmness (of some kinds of insects or other arthropods, such as spiders, just after ecdysis); teneral.
4. Shallow or weak-willed.
5. (of a brick) Unburnt.
6. Of land: low-lying and liable to be submerged.
7. (obsolete) Bald.

Translations

Unfledged

• Bulgarian: неоперен (bg) (neoperen)
• Dutch: ongevederd
• Finnish: höyhenetön
• German: ungefiedert

• Greek: άπτερος (el) m (ápteros)
• Irish: scallta, gan cleiteacha
• Russian: неоперившийся (ru) (neoperivšijsja)
• Ukrainian: неопере́ний (neoperényj)

Immature, lacking in life experience

• Bulgarian: неопитен (bg) (neopiten)
• Dutch: onervaren (nl), onrijp (nl), groen (nl)
• Finnish: kypsymätön, kokematon (fi), vihreä (fi)
• German: unerfahren (de), unreif (de), grün (de)
• Greek: άπειρος (el) m (ápeiros), πρωτόβγαλτος (el) m (protóvgaltos)

• Hungarian: zöldfülű (hu), taknyos (hu) (pejorative)
• Irish: gan chiall
• Mandarin: 没经年 (has no years of experience)
• Russian: незре́лый (ru) (nezrélyj), нео́пытный (ru) (neópytnyj)
• Ukrainian: недосві́дченй (nedosvídčenj), незрі́лий (nezrílyj)

Lacking color

• Hungarian: fakó (hu)

Shallow or weak-willed

• Finnish: heikkotahtoinen
• Ukrainian: слабові́льній (slabovílʹnij)

bald — see bald

Noun

callow (countable and uncountable, plural callows)

1. A callow young bird.
2. A callow or teneral phase of an insect or other arthropod, typically shortly after ecdysis, while the skin still is hardening, the colours have not yet become stable, and as a rule, before the animal is able to move effectively.
3. An alluvial flat.

References

• “callow” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2021.

Anagrams

• low-cal