Inherited fromMiddle Englishyong,yonge, fromOld Englishġeong, fromProto-West Germanic*jung, fromProto-Germanic*jungaz, fromProto-Indo-European*h₂yuHn̥ḱós, from*h₂yuh₁en-(“young”).
young (comparativeyounger,superlativeyoungest)
- In theearly part ofgrowth orlife;born not long ago.
a lamb is ayoung sheep
these picture books are foryoung readers
1809 October 26,William Wordsworth, “The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement”, inFriend,No. 11, ll. 4-5:Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to beyoung was very heaven!
1813,Jane Austen,Pride and Prejudice:"What a charming amusement foryoung people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished society."
1913,Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, inMr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London:D[aniel] Appleton and Company,→OCLC:I stumbled along through theyoung pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
1998, Elizabeth Hess,Lost and Found:At Columbia-Greene, staffers go for the most unadoptable animals to save them from euthanasia. Theyoungest, healthiest, cutest pets are waiting for you.
1998, Arne Gerdner,Compulsory Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders, page85:The factors related to increase in number of abscondings wereyounger age, psychiatric problems, multi-drug abuse and living alone.
2013 July 19,Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, inThe Guardian Weekly, volume189, number 6, page34:Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development inyoung children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits. ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.
2023 March 8, Jen Christensen, “Young children are increasingly victims of opioid epidemic, study finds”, inCNN[1]:The number of young children in the US who have died from opioid overdoses has increased significantly, according to a new study on accidental poisonings of children 5 andyounger.
- At an early stage of existence or development; having recently come into existence.
the age of space travel is stillyoung
ayoung business
1975,David Bowie, “Golden Years”, inStation to Station:Look at that sky, life's begun / Nights are warm and the days areyoung
2023 August 24, Mairead Sheehy, “Irish group captures 'advanced image' of one of the youngest stars known to scientists”, inIrish Examiner[3]:A team of Irish astronomers have captured an out-of-this-world image of one of theyoungest stars known to scientists.
- (Not) advanced in age; (far towards or) at a specified stage of existence or age.
- 1906, Robertson Nicoll,Tis Forty Years Since, quoted inT. P.'s Weekly, volume 8, page 462:
- And thou, our Mother, twice two centuriesyoung,
- Bend with bright shafts of truth thy bow fresh-strung.
Howyoung is your dog?
Her grandmother turned 70 yearsyoung last month.
- Junior (of two related people with the same name).
1841,The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art:Theyoung Mr. Chester must be in the wrong, and the old Mr. Chester must be in the right.
- Early.(of a decade of life)
- 1922,E. Barrington, “The Mystery of Stella” in“The Ladies!” A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, pp. 40-41,[4]
- […] Miss Hessy is as pretty a girl as eye can see, in heryoung twenties and a bit of a fortune to boot.
- Youthful; having thelook orqualities of a young person.
2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, inThe Economist, volume408, number8847:Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where brightyoung things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.
My grandmother is a very active woman and is quiteyoung for her age.
- Of or belonging to the earlypart of life.
The cynical world soon shattered myyoung dreams.
- (obsolete) Having littleexperience;inexperienced;unpracticed;ignorant;weak.
c.1598–1600 (date written),William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC,[Act I, scene i]:Come, come, elder brother, you are tooyoung in this.
- (antonym(s) of“born not long ago”):old,aged,grown up,senior,youthless,elderly
- (antonym(s) of“having qualities of a young person”):aged,old,youthless,mature,elderly
- (antonym(s) of“of or belonging to the early part of life”):senior,mature,elderly
- (antonym(s) of“inexperienced”):mature,experienced,veteran
Terms derived fromyoung (adjective)
young (pluralyoung)
- (often as if a plural noun)Offspring,especially theimmatureoffspring ofanimals.
The lion caught a gnu to feed itsyoung.
The lion'syoung are curious about the world around them.
2010,Mammal Anatomy: An Illustrated Guide[5], page21:There is a logic in this behavior: a mother will not come into breeding condition again unless heryoung is ready to be weaned or has died, so killing a baby may hasten[…]
offspring
- Armenian:ձագ (hy)(jag)
- Assyrian Neo-Aramaic:ܙܲܥܝܵܐ m(zaˁyā),ܙܵܥܬܵܐ f(zāˁtā)
- Bulgarian:малко (bg) n(malko)
- Chechen:кӏорни(kʼorni)
- Dutch:jongen (nl) pl
- Finnish:jälkeläiset (fi) pl,poikaset (fi) pl
- French:petit (fr) m
- German:Nachkomme (de) m,Nachwuchs (de) m,Brut (de) f,Abkömmling (de) m,Junge (de) n
- Hungarian:kölyök (hu),kicsiny(e) (hu),fióka (hu)
- Icelandic:ungviði n
- Interlingua:pullo
- Italian:piccoli (it) m pl,prole (it) f
- Japanese:子供 (ja)(kodomo)
- Korean:새끼 (ko)(saekki)
- Maori:kūao(refers only to animals)
- Polish:młode (pl) n pl
- Portuguese:filhote (pt)
- Romanian:pui (ro)
- Russian:молодня́к (ru) m(molodnják),молодь (ru) f(molodʹ),детёныш (ru) m(detjónyš)
- Santali:ᱜᱳᱱ(gon)
- Scottish Gaelic:àl m
- Swahili:dogo (sw)
- Swedish:unge (sv) c
- Welsh:llwdn (cy) m
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young (third-person singular simple presentyoungs,present participleyounging,simple past and past participleyounged)
- (informal or demography) To become or seem to becomeyounger.
1993, Jacob S. Siegel,A Generation of Change,page 5:The aging (oryounging) of a population refers to the fact that a population, as a unit of observation, is getting older (or younger).
- (informal or demography) To cause to appear younger.
1984, US Bureau of the Census,Current Population Reports[6], page74:Medicare data was "younged" by a month to achieve conformity with the conventional completed ages recorded in the census.
- (geology) To exhibityounging.
1994, R. Kerrich, D.A. Wyman, “The mesothermal gold-lamprophyre association”, inMineralogy and Petrology,→DOI:Shoshonitic magmatismyounged southwards in the Superior Province, commensurate with the southwardly diachronous accretion of allochthonous subprovinces.
2001 November 23, Paul Tapponnieret al., “Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau”, inScience[7], volume294, number5547,→DOI, pages1671–1677:The existence of magmatic beltsyounging northward implies that slabs of Asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the Himalayas.
young
- Alternative form ofyong
