Adolescent

How to spell adolescent

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce adolescent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adolescent mean?

1. nounA young person in the stage of development between childhood and adulthood.
2. adjectiveRelating to or characteristic of the years between childhood and adulthood.

Adolescent in a sentence

• noun

  The clinic offers counselling designed specifically for every troubled young adolescent.

• adjective

  The book explains the rapid adolescent growth spurt in clear terms.

• noun

  As an adolescent she spent most weekends working at her uncle's shop.

• adjective

  His adolescent stubbornness eventually gave way to a calmer outlook.

Where does adolescent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English from the Latin verb adolescere, which meant 'to grow up' or 'to come to maturity'. That verb was built from the prefix ad-, meaning 'toward', and alescere, 'to grow', an extended form of alere, 'to nourish'. The present participle adolescens described someone in the process of growing up, while the past participle of the same verb, adultus, gave us the word 'adult'; so adolescent and adult are quite literally the same idea caught at different stages, one still growing and one fully grown. English picked the term up through French in the fifteenth century, first as a noun for a youth and later as an adjective. The tricky spelling comes straight from that Latin -sc- cluster: the silent, soft 'sc' in the middle is the part adults most often fumble.

How the word is built

• ad- (to, toward)
• olesc- (from alescere: to grow, nourish)
• -ent (noun/adjective suffix)