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Second childhood   /sˈɛkənd tʃˈaɪldhˌʊd/   Listen
Second childhood

noun
1.
Mental infirmity as a consequence of old age; sometimes shown by foolish infatuations.  Synonyms: dotage, senility.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Second childhood" Quotes from Famous Books



... help what you thought," I answered, rudely, for I was getting desperate. "You've no right to keep me here like this, and it won't do you a bit of good, for if you stand there till we're both in our second childhood, I won't change my mind. You ought to know that now, Mr. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... sooner than the common herd decay. What bitter pangs must humble genius feel, In their last hour to view a Swift and Steele! How must ill-boding horrors fill their breast, When she beholds men, mark'd above the rest For qualities most dear, plung'd from that height, And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night! Are men indeed such things? and are the best More subject to this evil than the rest, To drivel out whole years of idiot breath, And sit the monuments of living death? O galling circumstance to human pride! Abasing thought! but not to be deny'd. With curious art, the brain ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... hen who desires to set for the purpose of getting out an early edition of spring chickens that I am averse to. It is the aged hen, who is in her dotage, and whose eggs, also, are in their second childhood. Upon this hen I shower my anathemas. Overlooked by the pruning hook of time, shallow in her remarks, and a wall-flower in society, she deposits her quota of eggs in the catnip conservatory, far from the haunts of men, and then in August, when eggs are extremely ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... project and transfuse itself into objects, that it is apt to speak of itself in the third person. A child seldom says, "I will," or "I am hungry," but "Louis wants," "Louis is hungry," or whatever his name may be. This phenomenon reappears in the second childhood of old age, when the power of reflection is weakened, and there is a reversion to the primitive animal condition. The same phenomenon also occurs in idiots, in whom there is a morbid defect of ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... familiar phrase, denoting persons who have been always frivolous and childish, or those who have passed into second childhood. 'On the shelf' is a common saying of ladies when they are ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan


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