How to Use man-child in a Sentence

man-child

noun
  • Meeting his daughter's man-child boyfriend over the holidays.
    — Lydia Price, PEOPLE, 23 Dec. 2025
  • Julio, the bratty, charming man-child, is the lecturer.
    — Adam Moss, Vulture, 17 Apr. 2026
  • Musk is often portrayed as an easily bored man-child who is driven by id and an unrivaled ego.
    — Zachary Karabell, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Sandler played the titular role of a man-child repeating grades one through 12.
    — Skyler Trepel, Peoplemag, 10 Feb. 2024
  • Lakis plays Miranda, Daniel’s estranged wife, who has grown weary of his man-child antics.
    — Thomas Floyd, Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2023
  • There is no bigger joy in the world than living alone to a clean space and not having to deal with a man-child to do the most minimal house chores.
    — R29 Team, refinery29.com, 3 May 2024
  • In reality, Pee-wee Herman was nothing like us at all, a dreamy man-child in a red bow tie whose sugary smile could curl into a punky scowl.
    — Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 2 Aug. 2023
  • The truth is more complicated, but a stunted man-child searching for Dad’s approval makes Williams relatable.
    — Peter Debruge, Variety, 2 Sep. 2024
  • Perennial man-child Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) has some serious growing up to do.
    — Kate Stroup, EW.com, 31 Dec. 2024
  • Whether in the interview scenes or in the flashbacks, his hushed intensity suggests a fractured man-child who was never properly socialized.
    — Tim Grierson, Los Angeles Times, 29 Mar. 2024
  • Just when this man-child is ready to take responsibility, his actual child has zero interest in being parented.
    — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Infiniti is asked to play the put-upon daughter of a man-child father, a scared child, a phony among true believers, and eventually, a reluctant killer.
    — Paul A. Thompson, Pitchfork, 24 Sep. 2025
  • The film tells the story of Zeba, who is newly married to man-child Sajawal after having three suitors who ended up dying.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 4 Feb. 2026
  • Miller gives us a giddy man-child, suddenly given powers beyond their comprehension and wild to the possibilities of this newfound need for speed.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 6 June 2023
  • Efron’s self-esteem is at rock bottom, and his hard-working assistant Zara (Joey King) has had enough of his mood swings and outlandish man-child requests.
    — Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 5 Sep. 2024
  • The answer could be more complicated and intensely captivating than the mercurial man-child himself.
    — Jennifer Jolly, USA TODAY, 4 Aug. 2023
  • This makes Solo an interesting foil for Nichols, a whimpering man-child to her hypercompetent and quiet loner.
    — Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 17 Jan. 2025
  • Shajaffar plays Zeba, who is newly married to man-child Sajawal (Hanif) after having three suitors who ended up dying.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 13 Feb. 2026
  • The film starts as a riff on codependent relationships and a narcissistic man-child who nevertheless gets everyone around him to do his bidding, but as the plot swerves in one direction after the other, the satire gets lost.
    — Murtada Elfadl, Variety, 2 Feb. 2025
  • Playing the disconnected man-child still married to a woman who preyed upon him as a seventh-grader, Melton tinged his character’s agony with a heartbreaking sadness that lingered long after the film ended.
    — Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 19 Jan. 2024
  • Miranda is now fully gay, split up from Steve (David Eigenberg), her son Brady (Niall Cunningham) a man-child stumbling through his twenties.
    — Lyz Lenz, Rolling Stone, 16 Aug. 2025
  • Perhaps the biggest development is that Daemon abandons the idea of making a play for the Iron Throne himself, a reversal of where the story seemed to be heading this season for the bratty man-child.
    — Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 5 Aug. 2024
  • Winter’s cast is certainly up to the seriocomic challenge, with Gad playing a pitch-perfect man-child in an Alamo Drafthouse t-shirt who can’t help but notice that his life has turned into one of his unsold scripts.
    — Michael Rechtshaffen, HollywoodReporter, 12 Sep. 2025
  • Adams is relegated to the sidelines here, playing a small-towner who’s basically in a throuple with a man-child (Segel) devoted to his Muppet brother (voiced by Peter Linz).
    — Matthew Jacobs, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2024
  • Emotionally and physically abused by his tyrannical father, Jackson grew up to become a misfit man-child credibly accused — though never convicted — of molesting multiple young boys.
    — Mark Shanahan, BostonGlobe.com, 17 May 2023
  • There is a lovely scene between Claire and her oldest daughter, Channing, who is so put together with her own family of two kids and an awkward husband, that most of her mom’s attention goes to the unlucky-in-love man-child son and her loved addicted sister.
    — Katie Grant, Parents, 2 Dec. 2025
  • While Buckley's Bride finds new agency on their road trip, Bale’s Frank is a complementary partner-in-crime, exuding tough-guy swagger but also man-child innocence as a vulnerable brute with a poet’s soul.
    — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 4 Mar. 2026
  • Dawkins was a 6-10, 245-pound man-child who made Evans almost unbeatable in the Trojans’ 1974-75 state championship season before becoming the first player to jump from high school to the NBA.
    — Buddy Collings, The Orlando Sentinel, 21 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'man-child.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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