Word.ws English Dictionary

callow

Syllables: cal·low/ˈkæləʊ//ˈkæloʊ/

callow adjective: immature, inexperienced, or naive.

Adjective (1)

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

  1. Immature, inexperienced, or naive.
    • 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.1764, A Society of GENTLEMEN, THE CRITICAL REVIEW or Annals of Literature, volume the Seventeenth, London, page 487
  2. Having no hair; bald, bare, hairless.
    • 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.1878, A[lfred] Egmont Hake, “Professeurs de Langues”, in Paris Originals, London: C[harles] Egan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC, page 25
    • 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.1916 July 1, S. Macnaughton, “Some Elderly People and Their Young Friends. Chapter V.”, in The Living Age, volume III (8th Series; volume CCXC overall), number 3756, Boston, Mass.: The Living Age...
  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.
    • […] 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 /...1567, Ovid, “The Sixt Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC, folio 79, verso
    • [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...1603, Plutarch, “Of Hearing”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield, →OCLC, page 63
    1. (figuratively) Lacking life experience; immature, inexperienced, naive; also, of or relating to something immature or inexperienced.
      • 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 follow1960, “Try to Remember”, in Tom Jones (lyrics), Harvey Schmidt (music), The Fantasticks: The Original Cast Album of the Award-winning International Musical, performed by Jerry Orbach (as El Gallo)...
  5. (broadly) In the life cycle of an animal: newly born or hatched; juvenile.
    • a callow bee
  6. (broadly) Synonym of teneral (“of certain insects or other arthropods such as spiders: lacking colour or firmness just after ecdysis (“shedding of the exoskeleton”)”).
    Synonyms:
    teneral
  7. (obsolete) Of land: having no vegetation; bare.
    • [T]heſe Lands are not ſvvardy enough to bear clean tillage, nor callovv or light enough to lie to get ſvvard, […]1677, Rob[ert] Plot, “Of Arts”, in The Natural History of Oxford-shire, Being an Essay toward the Natural History of England, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Sheldonian] Theater […], →OCLC, paragraph 66...

Noun (1)

callow (countable and uncountable, plural callows)

  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”).
    Synonyms:
    teneral
  2. An alluvial flat.
  3. (UK, archaic, regional) The upper layer of rubble in a quarry which has to be removed to reach the material to be mined.
  4. (obsolete) A young bird which has not developed feathers yet; a nestling.
    1. (figuratively, obsolete) A person lacking life experience; an immature or naive person.
  5. (East-Anglia, obsolete) Synonym of topsoil (“upper layer of soil”).
    Synonyms:
    topsoil

Adjective (2)

callow (comparative more callow, superlative most callow)

  1. (Ireland) Of land: low-lying and near a river, and thus regularly submerged.
    • The Bogs that extend along the western part of this District do not lie close to the Shannon, as those on the east side do along the banks of the Inny; they are separated from the river by a long tract of high, dry, callow land, subject, immediately near the river, to being overflowed in winter...1811 February 26 (date written), Thomas Townsend, “Appendix, No. 7. The Report of Mr. Thomas Townsend; in District No. 6. [No. 5. Details of Particular Bogs.]”, in J. Leslie Foster [et al.], The...

Noun (2)

callow (plural callows)

  1. (Ireland) A low-lying meadow near a river which is regularly submerged.
    • Near-synonyms: bog, fen, marsh, swamp, mire, moor, slough
    • The crops of hay carried off by the floods, or rendered utterly valueless, were not the only losses sustained by the landholders. The extensive callows upon which they grazed their cattle during the autumn and early winter, were unavailable this season.1862, Henry Coulter, chapter I, in The West of Ireland: Its Existing Condition, and Prospects, Dublin: Hodges & Smith, […]; London: Hurst & Blackett, […]; Edinburgh; London: W[illia]m Blackwood &...

Proper noun capitalized: Callow

Callow (plural Callows)

  1. A surname.

callow meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

callow in Tamil

அனுபவமற்ற, முதிராத, சிறகு முளைக்காத, புதிதாகப் பொறித்த வேலைக்கார, ஆற்றுவண்டலுள்ள சமநிலம், வெள்ளத்தில் மூழ்கத்தக்க நிலையில் தாழ்வான

callow in Urdu

بےڈاڑھی, کورا, نالائق

callow in Bengali

অপরিপক্ব, অভিজ্ঞতাহীন

callow in Malayalam

immature, inexperienced, juvenile
അപക്വ, മൂപ്പെത്താത്ത, പാകം വരാത്ത, വിളയാത്ത, അപാക, അപരിണത
More languagesFewer languages
callow in Kannada
ಪಾಡಿಲ್ಲದ, ಅಪಕ್ವ, ಎಳಸು, ಅನುಭವವಿಲ್ಲದ

Examples of callow in a sentence

  • This time it held a callow-headed baby in a pink frock.1944, Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, London; Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers […], →OCLC, page 225, column 1:
  • These hands were marked of hard work and yet soft enough to tenderly hold the baby's little callow head.2011, Altea [pseudonym], chapter 3, in Happiness Was a Red Cadillac, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 17:
  • […] Calais and Zetes had no beard upon their chin, / They both were callow.1567, Ovid, “The Sixt Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […]...
  • 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, […]1801, Robert Southey, “The Fifth Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume I, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees...

All 11 example sentences with callow

Synonyms of callow

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of callow

Forms of callow

Adjective
comparativecallower
comparativemore callow
superlativecallowest
superlativemost callow
Noun
pluralcallows
Proper noun
pluralCallows

Origin of callow

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”)

From Irish caladh (“meadow by a riverbank”), from Old Irish calad (“shore, landing, port”), probably a noun use of calad (“hard”, adjective), from Proto-Celtic *kaletos (“cruel; hard; strong”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlH-eto- (“cold”) (in the sense of something frozen and thus hard), from an unclear root *ḱl(H)- or *kl(H)- (“hard”); or related to Proto-Germanic *halluz (“boulder, rock, stone”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kel- (“to cut, hew”). Perhaps influenced by Etymology 1 in some manner.

Words formed from callow

Words that rhyme with callow

Questions about callow

What does callow mean?
Callow means immature, inexperienced, or naive.
What is callow in Tamil?
Callow in Tamil is அனுபவமற்ற, முதிராத, சிறகு முளைக்காத. See Callow meaning in Tamil.
How do you use callow in a sentence?
This time it held a callow-headed baby in a pink frock.
What part of speech is callow?
Callow can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce callow?
Callow is pronounced /ˈkæləʊ/ (UK).

Words near callow in the dictionary

  1. callout cultures
  2. callouts
  3. callover
  4. callovers
  5. Callovian
  6. callow
  7. Callow Hill
  8. Calloway
  9. Calloway County
  10. Calloways
  11. callower

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: callow (page history and authors); Callow (page history and authors); callow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); callow (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); callow (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); callow (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); callow (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-callow.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-callow.wav.

Cite this entry: “callow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/callow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.