grown-up

comparative more grown-up · superlative most grown-up · alternative grownup · alternative grown up

1. Adult, physically mature.

   Synonyms: adult, adultlike, adulty, grown up, adult, big, developed, full-grown

2. Of, pertaining to, or suitable for adults.

   Synonyms: mature, 18+, adult, grown up, grownup, mature, R-rated

3. Having a mature outlook.

   Synonyms: adultish, adultish, grown up, mature

plural grown-ups · alternative grownup · alternative grown up

1. childishoftenAn adult.

   Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means.

   2006 August 9, Randall Munroe, “Grownups”, in xkcd (webcomic)

   2 more examples

   They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

   1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9

   Do you think the grown-ups will have the world fixed up by the time they hand it over to us?

   1988 June 8, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes (comic)