grown-up
noun1
Childish, Often An adult.
- 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):
1 more example
- 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):
- Derived terms
- grown-up point