second childhood
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A period of foolish or immature behavior in adulthood
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
kỳ gian thụt lùi hoặc hành vi thiếu trưởng thành
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: a childhood experienced for the second time
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
His later childhood, I should say;
Lilian was in her second childhood and Harriet was expecting her second child, which she secretly despised.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “second childhood” mean?
A period of foolish or immature behavior in adulthood Literally: a childhood experienced for the second time
Is “second childhood” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.