Meaning & use

callow

adjective·Advanced

Lacking experience or maturity, especially in a way that shows in someone's judgment or behavior.

See it in a sentence

The callow young officer had never faced real combat before that night.

Looking back, she found her callow twenty-year-old opinions embarrassingly confident.

A note on using this word

Callow specifically implies youthful inexperience, unlike 'naive,' which can apply to a person of any age.

Words with a similar meaning

inexperiencedimmature

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

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