young - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Inherited from Middle English yong, yonge, from Old English ġeong, from Proto-West Germanic *jung, from Proto-Germanic *jungaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂yuHn̥ḱós, from *h₂yuh₁en- (“young”).

Cognates

Cognate with Alemannic German jung, jungu, junhs, jungà, jòng (“young”), Bavarian junk (“young”), Central Franconian, Luxembourgish jonk (“young”), Cimbrian djung, jung, junk (“young”), Dutch jong (“young”), German, German Low German, Mòcheno and Vilamovian jung (“young”), Limburgish jong, jonk (“young”), Yiddish יונג (yung, “young”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish ung (“young”), Faroese, Icelandic ungur (“young”), Gothic 𐌾𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍃 (juggs, “young”).

young (comparative younger, superlative youngest)

  1. In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.
    a lamb is a young sheep
    these picture books are for young readers
    Come skydiving with us. Come on, you're only young once!
    • 1809 October 26, William Wordsworth, “The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement”, in Friend, No. 11, ll. 4-5:
      Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
      But to be young was very heaven!
    • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice:
      "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."
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1998, Elizabeth Hess, Lost and Found:
      At Columbia-Greene, staffers go for the most unadoptable animals to save them from euthanasia. The youngest, healthiest, cutest pets are waiting for you.
    • 1998, Arne Gerdner, Compulsory Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders, page 85:
      The factors related to increase in number of abscondings were younger age, psychiatric problems, multi-drug abuse and living alone.
    • 2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:
      Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young 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”, in CNN‎[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 and younger.
    • 2025 March 23, Libby Brooks and Severin Carrell, “‘Hostile environment’ drives many of SNP’s female MSPs to step down before 2026 vote”, in The Guardian‎[2]:
      These concerns were shared by other SNP women who told the Guardian there was a chronic lack of support from the party, including for those with younger families.
  2. At an early stage of existence or development; having recently come into existence.
    the age of space travel is still young
    a young business
    • 1975, David Bowie, “Golden Years”, in Station to Station:
      Look at that sky, life's begun / Nights are warm and the days are young
    • 2023 August 24, Mairead Sheehy, “Irish group captures 'advanced image' of one of the youngest stars known to scientists”, in Irish Examiner‎[4]:
      A team of Irish astronomers have captured an out-of-this-world image of one of the youngest stars known to scientists.
  3. (Not) advanced in age; (far towards or) at a specified stage of existence or age.
    • 1906, Robertson Nicoll, Tis Forty Years Since, quoted in T. P.'s Weekly, volume 8, page 462:
      And thou, our Mother, twice two centuries young,
      Bend with bright shafts of truth thy bow fresh-strung.
      How young is your dog?
      Her grandmother turned 70 years young last month.
  4. Junior (of two related people with the same name).
    • 1841, The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art:
      The young Mr. Chester must be in the wrong, and the old Mr. Chester must be in the right.
  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,[5]
      […] Miss Hessy is as pretty a girl as eye can see, in her young twenties and a bit of a fortune to boot.
  6. Youthful; having the look or qualities of a young person.
    • 2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      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.
      My grandmother is a very active woman and is quite young for her age.
  7. Of or belonging to the early part of life.
    The cynical world soon shattered my young dreams.
  8. (obsolete) Having little experience; inexperienced; unpracticed; ignorant; weak.

young (plural **young or youngs)

  1. (often as if a plural noun) Offspring, especially the immature offspring of animals.
    The lion caught a gnu to feed its young.
    The lion's young are curious about the world around them.
    • 2010, Mammal Anatomy: An Illustrated Guide‎[6], page 21:
      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 […]

offspring

young (third-person singular simple present youngs, present participle younging, simple past and past participle younged)

  1. (informal or demography) To become or seem to become younger.
    • 1993, Jacob S. Siegel, A Generation of Change, page 5:
      The aging (or younging) of a population refers to the fact that a population, as a unit of observation, is getting older (or younger).
  2. (informal or demography) To cause to appear younger.
    • 1984, US Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports‎[7], page 74:
      Medicare data was "younged" by a month to achieve conformity with the conventional completed ages recorded in the census.
  3. (geology) To exhibit younging.
    • 1994, R. Kerrich, D.A. Wyman, “The mesothermal gold-lamprophyre association”, in Mineralogy and Petrology, →DOI:
      Shoshonitic magmatism younged southwards in the Superior Province, commensurate with the southwardly diachronous accretion of allochthonous subprovinces.
    • 2001 November 23, Paul Tapponnier et al., “Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau”, in Science‎[8], volume 294, number 5547, →DOI, pages 1671–1677:
      The existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of Asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the Himalayas.

young

  1. alternative form of yong