adolescent meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

adolescent

adj

/ˌæd.əˈlɛs.ənt/ · IN /əˈɖoː.le.senʈ/

Etymology First attested ?1440, from Middle English adolescent, from Middle French adolescent or directly from Latin adolescentem, accusative form of adolescens, present participle of adolēscere (“to become adult, grow up”), from ad- (“to”) + alēscere (“to grow or become nourished”). The adjective first appeared in 1785.

Of, relating to, or at the age of adolescence; at the stage between being a child and an adult.

Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong, / Detain their adolescent charge too long.1785, William Cowper, Tirocinium:
Again, voice change is not easy and vulnerability plays a big part, but if choral teachers and adolescent singers approach it with the right mindframe, the experience can be empowering, enlightening, and restorative for all involved.2019, Bridget Sweet, Thinking Outside the Voice Box, page 71:

Derived terms: adolescently, adultescent, mid-adolescent, middlescent, nonadolescent, periadolescent, postadolescent, preadolescent, subadolescent
Related terms: adolescence, adult

adolescent

noun

A person who is in adolescence; someone who has reached puberty but is not yet an adult.

It may be wartime, but Miss Adolescent wants her fun!1944, Noel Streatfeild, Theatre Shoes:
Besides, there are a great many of these accusers, and they have been accusing me now for a great many years; and what is more, they approached you at the most impressionable age, when some of you were children or adolescents; and they literally won their case by default, because there was no one to defend me.1954, Plato, translated by Hugh Tredennick, “Socrates on Trial: The Apology”, in The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics), Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 20:

1 more example

‘A healthy adolescent might be expected to produce five hundred billion blood cells a day.’2014, Ian McEwan, The Children Act, Penguin Random House (2018), page 66: