Now let's see if anyone can find an example of its actual usage ... I can't!

Edit; No, wait, found this:
Childly Language: Children, language and the social worldAlison Sealey, Lecturer in the Department of English Studies, University of Warwick
http://catalogue.pearsoned.co.uk/educator/pro...

But this is a book about children's use of language, so I'd be interested to know if "childly" isn't simply an example of words that children made up.

Well, I just posted a picture online of my young daughter waving excitedly to the snowplow as it went past, with the caption "Ah, childly pleasures!" Somehow "childlike pleasures" doesn't work here, and "the pleasures of being a child/the joy of being a child" work, but aren't as nice and concise. :-}

childly pleasures

Here are some other ways I would expect to hear it/use it myself:

childly actions

childly antics

childly waving (Okay, that one's an adverb.)

http://books.google.de/books/about/Childly_la...
Childly language: children, language, and the social world
Childly Language explores how attitudes and cultural assumptions about children and childhood are revealed in contemporary English.

childly innocence

Edith says: Could be it's not used in BE -- as I mentioned, I didn't find it on the OALD and CALD sites.

If it's not in reputable BE dictionaries, I'd vote to mark it AE. Re #1, Alison Sealey could be American for all we know. :-) (I haven't checked though.)

It is in the OED & SOED, a good word if used rightly.

I would suspect it of being literary and/or obsolescent, and would support adding it with some such marking. It sounds more like Tennyson to me than Minimus, as poetic as she no doubt is.

Though I can also see why you might be drawn to it with 'Ah, ...'


NOAD, AHD - no
Webster's 3rd unabridged - CHILDLIKE, CHILDISH 1.
Random House unabridged - [Rare.] childlike, childish.

OED:
childly - a. and adv. [... Often used in 19th c. literature, after having been obsolete since 16th c.] A. adj.
1. Of, belonging to, or natural to a child or childhood; childish.
[most recent citation Tennyson 1864]
†2. Becoming or proper to a child (as related to parent); filial. Hence childly fear.
[most recent citation Golding 1583]
B. adv. In a childish or childlike manner.
[most recent citation 1483]