Noun

Singular youth

Plural countable and uncountable; plural youths

youth (countable and uncountable; plural youths)

1. (uncountable) The quality or state of being young.
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 manhood.
3. (countable) A young person
4. (countable) A young man
5. (uncountable) (used in plural form) Young persons, collectively.

Synonyms

• (quality or state of being young): juvenility, youthfulness
• (young person): adolescent, kid, teen, teenager, youngster
• (young man): boy, young man
• (young persons, collectively): adolescents, kids, teenagers, teens, young people, youngsters

Antonyms

• (quality or state of being young): age, dotage, old age, senility

Derived terms

• fountain of youth
• middle youth, mid youth
• youth hostel

Youth is the period between childhood and adulthood, described as the period of physical and psychological development from the onset of puberty to maturity and early adulthood. Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals exist at all ages.

Usage

Around the world the terms "youth", "adolescent", "teenager", and "young person" are interchanged, often meaning the same thing, occasionally differentiated. Youth generally refers to a time of life that is neither childhood nor adulthood, but rather somewhere in-between. Youth also identifies a particular mindset of attitude, as in "He is very youthful". The term youth is also related to being young.

"This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease." - Robert Kennedy \

Youth is an alternative word to the scientifically-oriented adolescent and the common terms of teen and teenager. Another common title for youth is young person or young people.

Popular use of the word Youth refers to a person who is neither an adult nor a child, but somewhere in between, scientifically referred to as an adolescent and, in most English speaking countries, commonly referred to as a teen or teenager. It is used to identify a particular mindset of attitude, as in "He is very youthful". In various social, political, cultural, and legal contexts, the word "youth" refers to a pre-determined set of experiences, ideals, and perspectives.

Contents

• 1 Sourced
  • 1.1 Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
• 2 Unsourced
  • 2.1 Unknown
• 3 External links

Sourced

• Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing.
  • Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics

• "Nature has done well and wisely, in not permitting a man to live forever and in bringing into the world ever new generations. An old person is a used-up machine [... He] has too many dogmas to [...] easily [...] believe in a new truth [...]; too many sympathies and antipathies [...] for him to come to love something unfamiliar; [...] too many habits to be able to settle on new ways. Let us add suspiciousness — the fruit of bitter experiences; a pessimism inseparable from all manner of disappointments; and finally, a general decline of powers from exhaustion [...]."
  • Bolesław Prus, "Oda do młodości" ("Ode to Youth"), 1905.

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Sun Jul 12 07:57:28 2009