Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person with pedophilia.

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

  • noun A person who has pedophilia.

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

  • noun a person who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children.
  • noun In American psychiatry, a person attracted primarily to prepubescent children.(DSM-IV: Over a period of at least six months, recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children)

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

  • noun an adult who is sexually attracted to children

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From pedo- +‎ -phile, after Ancient Greek παιδόφιλος (paidophilos) (from παῖς (pais, "boy, child") and φιλέω (phileō, "I love")).

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Examples

Comments

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  • Scene from The IT Crowd demonstrating a rather unfortunate name.

    November 13, 2007

  • It's not linguistically interesting, but pedophile is definitely the word of the year 2025.

    Kendrick performed at the Super Bowl in February and didn't sing, but the crowd sang "certified loverboy? certified pedophile."

    "Release the Epstein files" all year. Calling them the "pedo files." Records from "pedophile island."

    It's on protest signs since the shutdown ended/release of emails calling Trump a pedophile.

    Republican pundits trying to "ease" the child sex abuse accudations by saying it's ephebophilia.

    It's the word of the year, newswise.

    November 24, 2025