Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or resembling cherubs; angelic: as, cherubic host; cherubic watch; cherubic songs.
  • Of, pertaining to, or exhibiting the childish innocence of the ‘cherubs’ or winged child-angels represented by painters and sculptors. See cherub, 2.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to cherubs; angelic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of, or relating to a cherub; angelic
  • adjective of, or like a baby; infantile

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having a sweet nature befitting an angel or cherub

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From cherub + -ic

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Examples

  • The word cherubic has appeared in 29 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Jan. 21 in "Bringing a Woman's Touch to Chinese Art Scene," by Joyce Hor-Chung Lau:

    NYT > Home Page By THE LEARNING NETWORK 2011

  • The "cherubic" singer indeed has a naughty side, and he has demonstrated it on multiple occasions, from pelting State Troopers with water balloons to talking about how much he likes boobs.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • It talks up the "cherubic" teenager "Jimmy" behind the site (and includes a photo of him for good measure) who it compares to

    Techdirt 2010

  • A small group of white girls from stupendously troubled families (the kids are described as "cherubic" for maximum effect) began meeting in one of the girls 'houses after school — and sometimes in a motel room — to do drugs and service two groups of rough trade, one of local white boys, the other of African-American boys (a recent prison inmate among them) who commuted from a different part of the county to avail themselves of the girls.

    Are You There God? It's Me, Monica 2006

  • A small group of white girls from stupendously troubled families (the kids are described as "cherubic" for maximum effect) began meeting in one of the girls 'houses after school — and sometimes in a motel room — to do drugs and service two groups of rough trade, one of local white boys, the other of African-American boys (a recent prison inmate among them) who commuted from a different part of the county to avail themselves of the girls.

    Are You There God? It's Me, Monica 2006

  • Teddy often attends morning service at that beautiful church and is surprisingly devout although he swears it is the cherubic choristers he goes to see.

    Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011

  • There is a generation of German men, for goodness sake, in their 30s now, who were christened Kevin simply because their mums fell in love with the cherubic Keegle's perm/mullet combo in his SV Hamburg days.

    Keegle is noble but good taste takes a tumbril | Martin Kelner 2011

  • (And instead of having a “cherubic kid hanging off him” making BJ LESS menacing, it actually makes those qualities STAND OUT!)

    Wrong, but how wrong? 2009

  • Child development experts, meanwhile, question the impact on the cherubic infant later in life and whether the couple has gone too far in their quest for gender neutrality.

    Couple's gender secret for baby touches off debate 2011

  • I have the thought that Emma might find Verbena a little bit, well, verbose, for one thing and quite possibly vapid, for another, but any negative vibes from Emma are overridden by my sense that Todd finds my cherubic and very enthusiastic friend delightful beyond measure.

    Ten Miles Past Normal Frances O’Roark Dowell 2011

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  • Big bottom girls...

    May 31, 2007