youth
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English youthe, youghte, ȝouþe, from Old English ġeoguþ (“the state of being young; youth”), from Proto-West Germanic *juwunþa, from Proto-Germanic *jugunþō, *jugunþiz (“youth”), corresponding to young + -th. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Juugd, West Frisian jeugd, Dutch jeugd, German Low German Jöögd, German Jugend.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /juː
θ / - (General American) IPA(key): /ju
θ / Audio (General American): (file) - (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA(key): /jʉ
θ / - Rhymes: -uː
θ
Noun
[edit]youth (countable and uncountable, plural youths)
- (uncountable) The quality or state of being young.
- 1910, Emerson Hough, “The Purchase Price”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers.
- 1936 Feb. 15, Ernest Hemingway, letter to Maxwell Perkins:
- Synonyms: juvenility, youngness, (archaic) youngth, youthfulness
- Antonyms: age, dotage, old age, senility
- Her youth and beauty attracted him to her.
- (uncountable) The part of life following childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to adulthood.
- Make the most of your youth, it will not last forever.
- I made many mistakes in my youth, but learned from them all.
- 2013 January, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 62:
- Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.
- (countable) A young person.
- (countable) A young man; a male adolescent or young adult.
- 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LII, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC, pages 274–275:
- […] and then a youth appeared—no one quite knew where from or to whom he belonged—but he settled down with them in a happy-go-lucky way, and they all lived together.
- (uncountable, used with a plural or singular verb) Young persons, collectively.
- Synonyms: adolescents, kids, teenagers, teens, young people, youngsters
Derived terms
[edit]- fountain of youth
- hilltop youth
- in the flower of one's youth
- middle youth, mid youth
- yoof
- youth academy
- youth bulge
- youth center
- youth centre
- youth-centric
- youth club
- youth court
- youth crew
- youth crime
- youth culture
- youth custody centre
- youth detention center
- youth detention centre
- youthful
- youth group
- youth hostel
- youth is wasted on the young
- youthly
- youth movement
- youth-on-age
- youth organization
- youthwards
- youth work
- youth worker
- youthy
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]quality or state of being young
|
part of life following childhood
|
young person
|
young man
|
young persons, collectively
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
References
[edit]- “youth”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- youth in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
- “youth”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Further reading
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]Middle English
[edit]Noun
[edit]youth
- (Late Middle English) Alternative form of youthe
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms suffixed with -th
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/uː
θ - Rhymes:English/uː
θ /1 syllable - English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
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- en:Age
- en:Collectives
- en:People
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- Late Middle English