youth

English Online Dictionary. What means youth‎? What does youth mean?

English

Alternative forms

• yought, youthe (both obsolete)

Etymology

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /juːθ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /juθ/
• (UK, General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /jʉːθ/, [jʉθ]
• Rhymes: -uːθ

Noun

youth (countable and uncountable, plural youths)

1. (uncountable) The quality or state of being young.
   • 1936 Feb. 15, Ernest Hemingway, letter to Maxwell Perkins:

     Feel awfully about Scott... It was a terrible thing for him to love youth so much that he jumped straight from youth to senility without going through manhood. The minute he felt youth going he was frightened again and thought there was nothing between youth and age.

   Synonyms: juvenility, youngness, (archaic) youngth, youthfulness

   Antonyms: age, dotage, old age, senility

2. (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.
3. (countable) A young person.

   Synonyms: adolescent, child, kid, lad, teen, teenager, youngster

   Antonyms: adult, grown-up

4. (countable) A young man; a male adolescent or young adult.

   Synonyms: boy, young man
5. (uncountable, used with a plural or singular verb) Young persons, collectively.

   Synonyms: adolescents, kids, teenagers, teens, young people, youngsters

Derived terms

Related terms

• young

Translations

References

• “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

• youth on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• youth on Wikiquote.Wikiquote

Anagrams

• Tuohy

Middle English

Noun

youth

1. (Late Middle English) Alternative form of youthe