Younger

How to spell younger

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce younger

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does younger mean?

1. adjectiveLess advanced in age than another person or thing; not as old.

Younger in a sentence

• Her younger brother still lives at home with their parents.

• The younger employees tend to prefer messaging over phone calls.

Where does younger come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is simply the comparative form of 'young', which descends from the Old English geong, meaning 'youthful' or 'in the early part of life'. That word goes back to a Proto-Germanic root jungaz, a relative of words found across the Germanic family such as Dutch jong and German jung, and ultimately connected to the Latin iuvenis 'young man', the source of 'juvenile'. The comparative was built by adding the ordinary -er ending, the same suffix that turns 'old' into 'older' or 'tall' into 'taller'. A spelling point worth noting is that a hard g sound is heard between the n and the suffix, so the word is written with the original g of 'young' kept and the -er added on top, giving the double consonant cluster 'ng-g' that the eye sometimes wants to simplify.

How the word is built

• young (from Old English geong: youthful)
• -er (comparative suffix)