callow

Meanings

Plural: callows

Adjective Satellite

young and inexperienced

Adj

Bald, hairless, bare.
Unfledged (of a young bird), featherless.
Newly emerged or hatched, juvenile.
Immature, lacking in life experience.
Lacking color or firmness (of some kinds of insects or other arthropods, such as spiders, just after ecdysis); teneral.
Shallow or weak-willed.
Unburnt.
Of land: low-lying and liable to be submerged.

Noun

A callow young bird.
A callow or teneral phase of an insect or other arthropod, typically shortly after ecdysis, while the skin still is hardening, the colours have not yet become stable, and as a rule, before the animal is able to move effectively.
An alluvial flat.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English calwe (“bald”), from Old English calu (“bare, bald, callow”), from Proto-West Germanic *kalu, from Proto-Germanic *kalwaz (“bare, naked, bald”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel(H)wo- (“bare, naked, bald”). Cognate with West Frisian keal (“bald”), Dutch kaal (“bald”), German Low German kahl (“bald”), German kahl (“bald”), Swedish kal and kalka (“bald”), and Russian го́лый (gólyj, “bare, naked, nude”).
Compare the phonetically and semantically similar Latin calvus (“bald”), Finnish kalju (“bald”), Persian کل (kal), and Sanskrit कुल्व (kulvá), which, despite their close resemblance to the Germanic and Slavic terms, are likely false cognates as shown by Grimm's law.

Synonyms

fledgling, green, unfledged, wet behind the ears

Antonyms

experienced, mature

Scrabble Score: 11

callow is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
callow is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
callow is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 14

callow is a valid Words With Friends word