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Child

Kinship
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A young person in relation to a parent. It can also describe innocence, dependence, or a speaker’s younger self.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, a child may be a literal son or daughter, an imagined future person, or a version of the speaker remembered from adulthood. The figure often evokes growth, fragility, wonder, and the passage of time. Poems may contrast a child’s limited understanding with an adult’s knowledge, or use childhood scenes to explore family history, fear, protection, loss, and the difficult movement from dependence toward independence.
Example
Example in poetry:
William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” uses the child’s perspective to expose social injustice; A speaker might write, “The child in me still waits beside the locked gate,” using child figuratively; In “The Wild Swans at Coole,” W. B. Yeats reflects on aging partly through the loss of youthful wonder, a childlike perspective; A poem can show vulnerability with “Each child carried a small moon through the evacuation”
Additional Notes
Child may name a literal young person or symbolize innocence, vulnerability, dependence, growth, or the speaker’s remembered younger self. Notice whether the child has agency.
Also Known As
Offspring Kid Youngster bairn leanbh Wean
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