different between immature vs unfledged

English

Etymology

From Middle French immature. Partially displaced unripe, from Old English unr?pe (“unripe, immature”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m??tj??(?)/, /?m??t???(?)/, /?m??t??(?)/
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Adjective

immature (comparative more immature, superlative most immature)

1. (now rare) Occurring before the proper time; untimely, premature (especially of death). [from 16th c.]
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Letter 481:

     And thou also canst best account for the causes of her immature death […] .

2. Not fully formed or developed; not grown. [from 17th c.]
3. Childish in behavior; juvenile. [from 20th c.]
   • Wilhelm Stekel - As quoted in The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger.

Synonyms

• (childish in behavior): infantile, milky; see also Thesaurus:childish

Translations

Noun

immature (plural immatures)

1. An immature member of a species.

Related terms

• mature
• immaturity

French

Adjective

immature (plural immatures)

1. immature, unripe

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

immature

1. inflection of immatur:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Adjective

immature

1. feminine plural of immaturo

Anagrams

• ammutire

Latin

Adjective

imm?t?re

1. vocative masculine singular of imm?t?rus

References

• immature in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• immature in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

English

Etymology

un- +? fledged

Adjective

unfledged (not comparable)

1. Not having feathers; (of a bird) not yet having developed its wings and feathers and become able to fly.

   Synonym: callow

   Antonym: fledged

   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act III, Scene 3^[1]

     […] we, poor unfledged,

     Have never wing’d from view o’ the nest, nor know not

     What air’s from home.

   • 1818, Jane Austen, Persuasion, Chapter 21,^[2]

     “The little Durands were there, I conclude,” said she, “with their mouths open to catch the music, like unfledged sparrows ready to be fed. They never miss a concert.”

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “The Bean-Field,”^[3]

     The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.

   • 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part 2, Chapter 28,^[4]

     “Boy and girl. Aren’t they beauties?” said the proud papa, beaming upon the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels.

2. (figuratively) Not yet fully grown or developed; not yet mature.
   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act I, Scene 2,^[5]

     Temptations have since then been born to’s; for

     In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;

     Your precious self had then not cross’d the eyes

     Of my young play-fellow.

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Section 5.5,^[6]

     Besides, it is not possible to give a young person a just view of life; he must have struggled with his own passions before he can estimate the force of the temptation which betrayed his brother into vice. Those who are entering life, and those who are departing, see the world from such very different points of view, that they can seldom think alike, unless the unfledged reason of the former never attempted a solitary flight.

   • 1848, James Russell Lowell, “Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades” in Poems. Second Series, Cambridge: G. Nichols, p. 38,^[7]

     Yet they who watch your God-compelled return

     May see your happy perihelion burn

     Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.

   • 1946, Olaf Stapledon, Death into Life, Chapter 4,^[8]

     Fantasy, sheer fantasy? Perhaps! But when we think of time and of eternity, intelligence reels. The shrewdest questions that we can ask about them are perhaps falsely shaped, being but flutterings of the still unfledged human mentality.

3. (figuratively) Inexperienced, like a tyro or novice.

   Antonym: experienced

   • 1898, Gertrude Atherton, The Californians, Book I, Chapter 23,^[9]

     He had long since determined that Magdaléna should marry no one of the sons of his moneyed friends, nor yet any of the sprouting lawyers or unfledged business youths who made up the masculine half of the younger fashionable set.

   • 1915, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island, Chapter 37,^[10]

     Aunt Jamesina had a proper respect for the cloth even in the case of an unfledged parson.