infancy Hear it!

infancy Definition

in·fancy (in′fən sē)

noun pl. -·cies

  1. the state or period of being an infant; babyhood; very early childhood
  2. the beginning or earliest stage of anything
  3. Law the state or period of being a minor; period before the age of legal majority, usually eighteen; minority

Etymology: LME < L infantia

infancy Synonyms

infancy

n.

  1. The time of life's beginning

    cradle, babyhood, early childhood; see childhood.

  2. Any period of beginning

    outset, start, opening, early stages; see origin 1.

infancy Law Definition

n

  1. The earliest stage of childhood.
  2. More generally used to describe a person prior to the age of majority.
infancy Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • survive: Florence, the last child who survived infancy was born in 1869.
  • compare: In both companies, D&O insurance is in its infancy compared to England.
  • exit: Public filings by JAMDAT and SEVEN Networks are a signal that the market for wireless chemical raw material applications is exiting infancy.
  • enjoy: Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

Preposition: at

  • time: My guess is that die-casting was in its infancy at the time, so thin-wall galleries could not be cast into the crankcases.

Preposition: through

  • adolescence: Childhood, from infancy through adolescence, is the time when mental health is developed.

Preposition: into

  • childhood: Introduction: Breastfeeding has major health benefits for both mother and baby and confers health advantages beyond infancy into childhood.

Adjective modifier

  • relative: The relative infancy of new services means that the industry still has a real opportunity to learn from its mistakes of the past.
  • early: They had all been " received into the church " in early infancy, that is, baptized.
  • very: This is a call that has been sounded in our ears, from our very infancy.
  • human: Sajid Humayun Imitation, tutoring and tool-use in human infancy.
  • spiritual: When these words were first written the Church, under the New Testament Dispensation, was still in its spiritual infancy.
  • helpless: She became aware that she had on her hands someone not far removed from helpless infancy.

Modifies a noun

  • trauma: In more detail, infancy trauma is explained in two articles.
  • narrative: In Luke's infancy narrative Mary is very much center stage.
  • stage: Objective E - The Co-op Group Plans are in the infancy stage to provide Co-op members with appropriate training for their roles.
  • problem: Nevertheless, infancy problems set the framework within which later difficulties are handled.
  • research: I try to synthesize the findings with infancy research in the Infant and Child Development article below.

Preposition: in

  • term: While it remains in its infancy in terms of uptake, the operational reasons for implementation can be clear.
infancy Quotes

He trailed the clouds of his own gloryafter him; hell lay about him in his infancy. He was ready for more deaths. SeeWordsworth 926:24.

—Greene, (Henry) Graham

We wove a web in childhood, A web of sunny air; We dug a spring in infancy Of water pure and fair; We sowed in youth a mustard seed, We cut an almond rod; We are now grown up to riper ageö Are they withered in the sod?

—Bronte«  , Charlotte

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his wayattended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

—Wordsworth,William

We canonlysay that helived intheinfancyofour poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first.

—Dryden,John

In unexperienc'd Infancy Many a sweet mistake doth lie.

—Traherne,Thomas

If we turn to early Irish literature, as we naturally may, to see what sort of people the Irish were in the infancy of the race, we find ourselves wandering in delighted bewilderment through a darkness shot with lightning and purple flame.

—O'Faolain, Sean

Surely, it is in youth man is most thoroughly depraved. Hell lies about us in our infancy. The youthful innocency sung by aged poets (who forget their first childhood) is nothing but ignorance of evil. As the child comes to know evil, he loves it.

—Mishima,Yukio pseudonym of  Hiraoka Kimitake

Women are from their very Infancy debarred those advantages, with the want of which they are afterwards reproached, and nursed up in those vices which will hereafter be upbraided to them. So partial are men as to expect brick where theyafford no straw.

—Astell, Mary