young

comparative younger · superlative youngest

1. In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.

   a lamb is a young sheep

   5 more examples

   these picture books are for young readers

   Come skydiving with us. Come on, you're only young once!

   Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

   1809 October 26, William Wordsworth, “The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement”, in Friend, No. 11, ll. 4-5

   "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished society."

   1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

   I stumbled along through the young 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.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: youthful

2. At an early stage of existence or development; having recently come into existence.

   a young business

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   the age of space travel is still young

   […] while the Fears of the People were young, they were encreas’d strangely by several odd Accidents […]

   1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt et al, page 23

   Look at that sky, life's begun / Nights are warm and the days are young

   1975, David Bowie, “Golden Years”, in Station to Station

   A team of Irish astronomers have captured an out-of-this-world image of one of the youngest stars known to scientists.

   2023 August 24, Mairead Sheehy, “Irish group captures 'advanced image' of one of the youngest stars known to scientists”, in Irish Examiner

3. Notadvanced in age; (far towards or) at a specified stage of existence or age.

   How young is your dog?

   2 more examples

   And thou, our Mother, twice two centuries young, Bend with bright shafts of truth thy bow fresh-strung.

   1906, Robertson Nicoll, Tis Forty Years Since, quoted in T. P.'s Weekly, volume 8, page 462

   Her grandmother turned 70 years young last month.

4. Junior (of two related people with the same name).

   The young Mr. Chester must be in the wrong, and the old Mr. Chester must be in the right.

   1841, The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

5. 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, […] Miss Hessy is as pretty a girl as eye can see, in her young twenties and a bit of a fortune to boot.

   2 more examples

   Ephraim would be in his young thirties.

   1965, Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate, London: Macmillan, Part One, Chapter 1

   […] while this may appeal to older, better-off shoppers, vast numbers, especially those in their teens and young twenties, still want fast, cheap fashion.

   2008 January 20, Alice Fisher, “Grown-up chic is back as high street goes upmarket”, in The Guardian

6. Youthful; having the look or qualities of a young person.

   My grandmother is a very active woman and is quite young for her age.

   1 more example

   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 bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.

   2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

   Synonyms: youthful, juvenile

7. Of or belonging to the early part of life.

   The cynical world soon shattered my young dreams.

   Synonyms: juvenile

8. obsoleteHaving little experience; inexperienced; unpracticed; ignorant; weak.

   Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.

   c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   Synonyms: underdeveloped, undeveloped, immature

plural youngs

1. oftenOffspring, especially the immature offspring of animals.

   The lion caught a gnu to feed its young.

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   The lion's young are curious about the world around them.

   There is a logic in this behavior: a mother will not come into breeding condition again unless her young is ready to be weaned or has died, so killing a baby may hasten […]

   2010, Mammal Anatomy: An Illustrated Guide, page 21

present singular third person youngs · participle present younging · participle past younged · past younged

1. informaldemographicsTo become or seem to become younger.

   The aging (or younging) of a population refers to the fact that a population, as a unit of observation, is getting older (or younger).

   1993, Jacob S. Siegel, A Generation of Change, page 5

2. informaldemographicsTo cause to appear younger.

   Medicare data was "younged" by a month to achieve conformity with the conventional completed ages recorded in the census.

   1984, US Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, page 74

3. geographyTo exhibit younging.

   The existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of Asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the Himalayas.

   2001 November 23, Paul Tapponnier et al., “Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau”, in Science, volume 294, number 5547, →DOI, pages 1671–1677

   1 more example

   Shoshonitic magmatism younged southwards in the Superior Province, commensurate with the southwardly diachronous accretion of allochthonous subprovinces.

   1994, R. Kerrich, D.A. Wyman, “The mesothermal gold-lamprophyre association”, in Mineralogy and Petrology, →DOI

plural Youngs

1. A surname.
   1. countableuncountableA British distinguishing surname transferred from the nickname for the younger of two people having the same given name.
   2. countableuncountableA Chinese surname from Cantonese.
   3. countableuncountableA Chinese surname from Hokkien.
   4. countableuncountableA Chinese surname from Mandarin.
2. A placename:
   1. countableuncountableA village in Saskatchewan, Canada.
   2. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community and census-designated place in Gila County, Arizona.
   3. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Brown Township, Morgan County, Indiana.
   4. countableuncountableA township in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.
   5. countableuncountableA township in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania.
   6. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Jackson County, West Virginia.
   7. countableuncountableA city in Río Negro department, Uruguay.
   8. countableuncountableA town in Hilltops council area, South West Slopes Region, New South Wales, Australia.
   9. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Young County.
   10. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Young Parish.
   11. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Young River.
   12. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Young Lake.
   13. abbreviationcountableellipsisuncountableEllipsis of Mount Young.