man-child
Americannoun
-
men-children
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of man-child
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I’m not sure it’s worth the time out of your life to keep engaging with this man-child.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 27, 2026
Gillis, 38, plays Shane, a man-child mechanic at Valley Forge Automotive Center.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
His death set off waves of grief among generations of "Friends" fans who loved him as the sarcastic man-child Chandler Bing.
From Barron's ● May 13, 2026
More chart-toppers followed — including “Dibs,” whose title provided her dog’s name, and “Peter Pan,” about the danger of falling for a charming man-child — as did a Grammy nomination for best new artist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2024
Acquaintances remember him as a socially awkward man-child with an outrageous sense of humor and a squirrelly, almost manic-depressive personality.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
In keeping with the vision of a “postmenopausal” Macbeth, they did change a line Macbeth speaks to his wife: “Bring forth men-children only/For thy undaunted mettle should compose/Nothing but male.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 4, 2021
The forty-year-old actor, who grew up in Virginia, is known for his gallery of overconfident Southern men-children.
From The New Yorker ● May 29, 2017
Now, old fans and new can watch it in all its insane glory, and get to experience the same crushing disappointment and bemusement that kids and men-children across the US did in 1978.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 1, 2015
Once young Barry gets more involved with the brothers, "you realize it is about these three men-children forming this new dysfunctional family unit."
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2015
Thine is it that our drama did not die, Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime, And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
From Tennyson and His Friends by Various
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
