youth

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Condition of being young

Nouns

1. youth, juvenility, juvenescence, immaturity, juniority; childhood, boyhood, maidenhood, girlhood, youthhood; minority, nonage, teenage, teens, tender age, bloom; prime of life, flower of youth or life; heyday of youth; school days; terrible twos; adolescence, puberty, the awkward age; rite of passage; growing pains; greenness, callowness; jeunesse dorée; inexperience, puerility; me decade. See newness, posterity.

2. babyhood, infancy, cradle, nursery, apron strings.

3. infant, newborn, baby, babe, suckling, chrisom child, nursling; bairn, enfant, papoose; preemie; offspring, young; brat, tot, toddler; the patter of tiny feet. Informal, kid[dy], chick, bambino, mudlark; big baby, thumb-sucker, crybaby. Slang, mama's boy, carpet or rug rat, ankle-biter, pickney.

4. child, boy, girl, muchacha, lad, maid, youth, hobbledehoy, stripling, subteen, tween, teen[ager], benjamin, adolescent, preppie, angry young man, enfant terrible; cherub, brat, imp, gamin, urchin; sapling; child prodigy, Wunderkind; foster child, fosterling; killcrop. Informal, bobby soxer, juvenile. Slang, spring chicken; boarder baby, zero-parent children, squeegee kid, banda; [jail]bait, forbidden fruit, juve, teenybopper; toyboy, punk kid, young fogy, shavetail, bimbo, colt, puppy, faun[l]et; bantam, quail, cover, crack, fluff, leg, tuna, zimmer.

5. bassinet, cradle, crib, rocker; day care or nursery; diaper, pacifier, teether, potty-chair, swaddling clothes; diaper rash.

6. (young animal) pup, whelp, kitten, cub, foal, colt, lamb. See animal.

Verbs — rejuvenate, make young; rob the cradle.

Adjectives — young, youthful, juvenile, tender, immature, wet behind the ears, green, callow, budding, sappy, unfledged, underage, prepubescent, preteen, preadolescent, teenage, in one's teens; hebetic, adolescent, pubescent; immature; younger, junior; boyish, beardless; maidenly, girlish; infant, infantile, newborn, babyish, childish, puerile; knee-high to a grasshopper.

Phrases — children should be seen and not heard; if youth knew, if age could; little pitchers have big ears; never send a boy to do a man's job; out of the mouths of babes; adolescence: a stage between youth and adultery.

Quotations — A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit (Rabelais), The child is father of the man (Wordsworth), My salad days, when I was green in judgment (Shakespeare), The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity (Benjamin Disraeli), I'm not young enough to know everything (/. M. Barrie), Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life (Herbert Asquith), There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in (Graham Greene), Children's games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play (Montaigne), What do we ever get nowadays from reading equal to the excitement and the revelation in those first fourteen years? (Graham Greene), Crabbed age and youth cannot live together; youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care (Shakespeare), Uncontrolled violence is a fault of youth (Seneca), The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication; for youth is sweet and they are growing (Aristotle), Youth is the pollen that blows through the sky and does not ask why (Stephen Vincent Benét), Youth is like spring, an overpraised season (Samuel Butler), Youth is something very new: twenty years ago, no one mentioned it (Coco Chanel), They are not long, the days of wine and roses (Ernest Dowson), No young man believes he shall ever die (William Hazlitt), Youth is quick in feeling but weak in judgment (Homer), It is only an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it (W. Somerset Maugham), The American ideal is youth — handsome, empty youth (Henry Miller), Youth condemns; maturity condones (Amy Lowell).

Antonyms, see age.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [The state or quality of being young]

Syn. boyhood, adolescence, girlhood, childhood, early manhood, early womanhood, early adulthood, puberty, tender age, juvenescence, minority, youthfulness, teen age, virginity, bloom, teens*, age of ignorance*, age of indiscretion*, awkward age*, salad days*, betweenities*.

Ant. maturity*, old age, senility.

2. [Young people]

Syn. the younger generation, the rising generation, the next generation, juvenility, children, the young, college youth, working youth.

3. [A young person]

Syn. boy, junior, teenager, lad, youngster, stripling, minor, young man, miss, girl, maiden, fledgling, juvenile, urchin, adolescent, student, kid*, teen*, pre-teen*, gosling*, pup*, calf*; see also child .

Ant. oldster, graybeard, dotard.

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

1. childhood infancy, preschool years, school years, young years, teens, adolescence, pubescence, puberty, minority, developing years. ''Life's morning march.''— Thomas Campbell. ''The glad season of life.''—Thomas Carlyle. ''A feeling of eternity.''—William Hazlitt.

2. child youngster, kid, boy, girl, teen, teenager, adolescent, minor, young man, young lady, juvenile, children, boys and girls, youngsters, teens, adolescents.

ANT.: 1. old age, adulthood, retirement years

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. The time of life between childhood and maturity: adolescence, greenness, juvenes-cence, juvenility, puberty, salad days, spring, youthfulness. See YOUTH. 2. A young person, usually between the ages of 13 and 19: adolescent, teen, teenager. Informal: teener. See YOUTH. 3. Young people collectively: young. See YOUTH.