# child

/ˈtʃaɪɫd/ (US) · /tʃˈaɪld/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/child
Updated: 2026-08-15

## Senses

### 3. product of a time or place

noun · CEFR B2

a person who is strongly influenced by the time or place they grew up in.

For teachers: a person or thing that is the product or result of a specific period, environment, or set of circumstances.

- As a child of the sixties, he loved rock music and social change.
- The novel's protagonist is very much a child of the industrial revolution, reflecting the anxieties of a society in rapid transition.

### 4. computing/math

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

a smaller part that is connected to a main part in a computer system or diagram.

For teachers: a node in a tree data structure that is descended from another node; a sub-process spawned by a parent process.

- In this folder structure, each subfolder is a child of the main directory.
- The algorithm recursively visits each child node to ensure the entire data tree is indexed correctly.

Usage: Often used in the pair 'parent/child' to describe hierarchical relationships.

## Examples

- The child plays with her toys in the garden.
- The software engineer explained that the child process would automatically terminate if the parent application crashed.
- While the primary application handles user authentication, it spawns a child process to manage the heavy data processing in the background to ensure the interface remains responsive.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.