Youthful

How to spell youthful

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce youthful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does youthful mean?

1. adjectiveHaving the freshness, energy, or appearance associated with being young.

Youthful in a sentence

• Her youthful enthusiasm made the long meeting feel shorter.

• The moisturiser promised a more youthful complexion within weeks.

Where does youthful come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word builds on the noun 'youth', which descends from the Old English geoguth, meaning the time of being young, itself related to the Germanic root that also gave us the word 'young'. By the late fourteenth century English had attached the native suffix -ful, literally meaning 'full of', to form 'youthful', describing someone or something brimming with the qualities of youth. The vowel cluster 'ou' in 'youth' is the spelling trap, since the sound is a long 'oo' rather than the 'ow' that the letters might suggest. That spelling settled during Middle English as scribes adopted French-influenced conventions for writing the 'oo' sound. The same -ful ending appears in everyday words such as 'helpful' and 'careful', and a reliable reminder is that it always keeps a single 'l' here even though the free-standing word 'full' has two.

How the word is built

• youth (the state of being young)
• -ful (full of, having the quality of)