juvenilia

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UK/ˌd͡ʒuːvəˈnɪliə/US/ˌd͡ʒuvəˈnɪliə/US/ˌd͡ʒuvəˈnɪljə/

noun

Works produced during an artist's or author's youth.

RareFirst used 1620sScrabble 19

Meanings

nounjuvenilia pl (plural only)
  1. pluralplural onlyliteratureWorks produced during an artist's or author's youth.First known use 1620s

    Lewis’s juvenilia is childlike, and the way it has been handled is childish.

    1996, Kathryn Lindskoog, Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C.S. Lewis
    4 more examples

    […]rhyme was not his talent; he had neither the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it: which is manifest in his “Juvenilia” or verses written in his youth, where his rhyme is always constrained and forced,[…].

    1888 [1692 August 18], John Dryden, “A Discourse on the Original and Progress of Satire”, in Henry Morley, editor, Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry, London; Paris; New York; Melbourne: Cassell & Company

    Charlotte Brontë, between the ages of thirteen and twenty-three, created a secret fantasy world called Angria, a world that she constructed in hundreds of pages of tiny manuscripts that make up her juvenilia[…].

    1998, Susan Anne Carlson, “Incest and Rage in Charlotte Brontë’s Novelettes”, in Tomoko Kuribayashi, Julie Tharp, editors, Creating Safe Space: Violence and Women's Writing, Albany: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 62

    Oh, this is what we permit ourselves, or what we used to permit ourselves, in our juvenilia. This is the stuff we pray desperately will not be found. This is what we later burn.

    2001, James Fenton, “Wilfred Owen's Juvenilia” (chapter 2), in The Strength of Poetry, Oxford University Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 23

    Alberto Arias does not actually use the term “juvenilia” for Tcherepnin's early works, but he too catalogues them separately from the rest of the composer's output, as “childhood works,” with only the briefest of indications of what this category contains.

    2009, Barry Cooper, “The Marginalization of Children's Compositions of the Past” (chapter 3), Overview (Part 1), in Child Composers and Their Works: A Historical Survey, Lanham, Maryland; Toronto; Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, →ISBN, page 28

Origin

  1. Latiniuvenīlia
  2. Englishjuvenilia

From Latin iuvenīlia, neuter plural of iuvenīlis (“of or pertaining to youth”). By surface analysis, juvenile + -ia

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with juvenilia

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

juvenilia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/juvenilia

MLA

“juvenilia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/juvenilia. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “juvenilia,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/juvenilia.

Source: juvenilia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.