Meaning: Puerile is an adjective and it means silly, foolish or immature. It is often used to convey triviality. A derogatory term, it is suggestive of silly, childish behaviour where adult maturity is preferred.
Origin: The term is said to have been around from the early 16th Century. It was derived from the Latin noun puer, meaning “boy” or “child”, which later gave rise to the French pueril and the Latin puerilis, meaning “childish”. It took on the pejorative sense of “juvenile and lacking maturity” from the 1680s.
Usage: It was dismissed as a puerile piece of writing. His puerile jokes did not go down well with the mature audience.
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