adolescentnoun [ C ]
uk/ˌæd.əˈles.ənt/us/ˌæd.əˈles.ənt/C2 a young person who is developing into an adult
Examples
- He looked uncomfortable, like a self-conscious adolescent who's gone to the wrong party.
- I'm looking after six adolescents for a week.
- She doesn't understand the emotional problems of adolescents.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Young people
- adolescence
- boyhood
- delinquent
- emo
- girlhood
- grow
- grow up
- mall rat
- minor
- punk
- skinhead
- Teddy boy
- teen
- teens
- tweenager
- yoof
- young blood
- young lady/man idiom
- youngster
- yute
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adolescentadjective
uk/ˌæd.əˈles.ənt/us/ˌæd.əˈles.ənt/being or relating to an adolescent:
an adolescent boy
adolescent concerns/traumas/problems
used to describe an adult or an adult's behaviour that is silly and like a child's:
adolescent humour/behaviour
More examples
- He eventually outgrew his adolescent interest in war and guns.
- The council was hoping to turn a children's home into a residence for adolescent girls.
- My daughter became quite difficult to deal with during her adolescent years.
- A lot of adolescent girls suffer from low self-esteem.
- It's sad to see a grown man acting in such an adolescent way.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Describing people who are young
- at your mother's knee idiom
- be knee-high to a grasshopper idiom
- flower
- fresh-faced
- in the flower of sb's youth idiom
- juvenile
- little
- mother
- prepubescent
- pubescent
- slip
- small
- teen
- teenager
- time
- underage
- yoof
- young
- youthful
- yute
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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Stupid and silly