pubescent
/pjʊˈbɛs(ə)nt
/adjective
1Relating to or denoting a person at or approaching the age of puberty: a gang of pubescent boys pubescent memories...
- They were pubescent boys who had reached puberty but had not yet grown beards.
- By the 1990s there were bras for every figure and circumstance, from pubescent teenagers to the elderly.
- It introduced a distinction between pre-pubescent and pubescent children, treating the latter as sexual children, and in so doing laid a foundation for the modern concept of adolescence.
2 Botany & Zoology Covered with short soft hair; downy.There is considerable variation in leaf morphology in V. riparia; in general leaves are glabrous to thinly pubescent with conspicuous tuft-form domatia in vein axils....
- Basal shoots simple, borne upright from the basal branches, to 10 cm long, densely pubescent with white trichomes.
- An ovule after strong maceration exhibits an inner cuticular envelope that extends upwards into the prominent micropyle and there is a rare relict of pubescent tapetum tissue at the base.
noun
A person at or approaching the age of puberty: the audience was largely made up of squealing pubescents...
- There should be no more braying at our opponents in the House of Commons like pinstriped pubescents from a bygone age.
- Teen drinking has always been there, pubescents drinking the types of alcohol adults wouldn't dream of touching.
- The small audience is probably due to licensing laws as half of the audience was made up of baggy-trouser pubescents peering through the window in the desperate hope of catching a glimpse of their school mates in action.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from French, or from Latin pubescent- 'reaching puberty', from the verb pubescere.