Word.ws English Dictionary

young

/jʌŋ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/jʊŋɡ/

young adjective: in the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.

Adjective

young (comparative younger, superlative youngest)

  1. In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.
    • a lamb is a young sheep
    • these picture books are for young readers
    Synonyms:
    youthful
  2. At an early stage of existence or development; having recently come into existence.
    • the age of space travel is still young
    • a young business
  3. (Not) advanced in age; (far towards or) at a specified stage of existence or age.
    • And thou, our Mother, twice two centuries young,
      Bend with bright shafts of truth thy bow fresh-strung.1906, Robertson Nicoll, Tis Forty Years Since, quoted in T. P.'s Weekly, volume 8, page 462
    • How young is your dog?
  4. Junior (of two related people with the same name).
    • The young Mr. Chester must be in the wrong, and the old Mr. Chester must be in the right.1841, The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art
  5. Early (of a decade of life).
    • […] Miss Hessy is as pretty a girl as eye can see, in her young twenties and a bit of a fortune to boot.1922, E. Barrington, “The Mystery of Stella” in “The Ladies!” A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, pp. 40-41
    • Ephraim would be in his young thirties.1965, Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate, London: Macmillan, Part One, Chapter 1
  6. Youthful; having the look or qualities of a young person.
    • Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching...2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
    • My grandmother is a very active woman and is quite young for her age.
    Synonyms:
    youthful, juvenile
  7. Of or belonging to the early part of life.
    • The cynical world soon shattered my young dreams.
    Synonyms:
    juvenile
  8. (obsolete) Having little experience; inexperienced; unpracticed; ignorant; weak.
    • Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Noun

young (plural young or youngs)

  1. (often) Offspring, especially the immature offspring of animals.
    • The lion caught a gnu to feed its young.
    • The lion's young are curious about the world around them.

Verb

young (third-person singular simple present youngs, present participle younging, simple past and past participle younged)

  1. (informal) To become or seem to become younger.
    • The aging (or younging) of a population refers to the fact that a population, as a unit of observation, is getting older (or younger).1993, Jacob S. Siegel, A Generation of Change, page 5
  2. (informal) To cause to appear younger.
    • Medicare data was "younged" by a month to achieve conformity with the conventional completed ages recorded in the census.1984, US Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, page 74
  3. To exhibit younging.
    • Shoshonitic magmatism younged southwards in the Superior Province, commensurate with the southwardly diachronous accretion of allochthonous subprovinces.1994, R. Kerrich, D.A. Wyman, “The mesothermal gold-lamprophyre association”, in Mineralogy and Petrology, →DOI
    • The existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of Asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the Himalayas.2001 November 23, Paul Tapponnier et al., “Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau”, in Science, volume 294, number 5547, →DOI, pages 1671–1677

Proper noun capitalized: Young

Young (countable and uncountable, plural Youngs)

  1. A British distinguishing surname transferred from the nickname for the younger of two people having the same given name.
  2. A Chinese surname from Cantonese.
  3. A Chinese surname from Hokkien.
  4. A Chinese surname from Mandarin.
  5. A village in Saskatchewan, Canada.
  6. An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Gila County, Arizona.
  7. An unincorporated community in Brown Township, Morgan County, Indiana.
  8. A township in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.
  9. A township in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania.
  10. An unincorporated community in Jackson County, West Virginia.
  11. A city in Río Negro department, Uruguay.
  12. A town in Hilltops council area, South West Slopes Region, New South Wales, Australia.
Show 5 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Young County.
  2. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Young Parish.
  3. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Young River.
  4. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Young Lake.
  5. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Mount Young.

young meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

young in Hindi

in the early part of life or growth
युवा yuvā, तरुण taruṇ

young in Tamil

in the early part of life or growth
இளைய iḷaiya, இளம் iḷam

young in Marathi

in the early part of life or growth
तरुण taruṇ

young in Urdu

in the early part of life or growth
جوان javān
More languagesFewer languages
young in Bengali
যুবক jubok, যুবতী juboti, তরুণ torun, জোয়ান jōẇan
young in Telugu
యువ yuva
young in Malayalam
ഇളയതായ iḷayatāya
young in Kannada
ತರುಣ taruṇa
young in Punjabi
ਨੌਜਵਾਨ, ਜਵਾਨ
young in Gujarati
યુવાન yuvān
young in Odia
ଯୁବକ
young in Sanskrit
युवन् yúvan, कनीन kanīna
young in Sinhala
තරුණ taruṇa
young in Assamese
ডেকা deka
young in Nepali
तन्नेरी tannerī, तरुण taruṇ, जवान javān
young in Pashto
ځوان źwân
young in Tagalog
bata
young in Arabic
صَغِير ṣaḡīr, حَدَث ḥadaṯ, شَابّ šābb, صَغِير اَلسِّنّ ṣaḡīr as-sinn
young in Malay
muda
young in Indonesian
muda
young in Persian
جوان javân, بچه bačče
young in Thai
อ่อนวัย ɔ̀ɔn-wai, เด็ก dèk, หนุ่ม nùm, สาว sǎao
young in Vietnamese
trẻ, non
young in Myanmar
ငယ် ngai
Sindhi
جوان javānu

Examples of young in a sentence

  • Come skydiving with us. Come on, you're only young once!
  • Her grandmother turned 70 years young last month.
  • "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr.1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice:
  • I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
  • The youngest, healthiest, cutest pets are waiting for you.1998, Elizabeth Hess, Lost and Found:
  • The factors related to increase in number of abscondings were younger age, psychiatric problems, multi-drug abuse and living alone.1998, Arne Gerdner, Compulsory Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders, page 85:

All 40 example sentences with young

Synonyms of young

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of young

Forms of young

Adjective
comparativeyounger
superlativeyoungest
Noun
pluralyoung
pluralyoungs
Verb
third-person singular presentyoungs
present participleyounging
past participleyounged
pastyounged
Proper noun
pluralYoungs

Origin of young

Inherited from Middle English yong, yonge, from Old English ġeong, from Proto-West Germanic *jung, from Proto-Germanic *jungaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂yuHn̥ḱós, from *h₂yuh₁en- (“young”). Cognates Cognate with Alemannic German jung, jungu, junhs, jungà, jòng (“young”), Bavarian junk (“young”), Central Franconian, Luxembourgish jonk (“young”), Cimbrian djung, jung, junk (“young”), Dutch jong (“young”), German, German Low German, Mòcheno and Vilamovian jung (“young”), Limburgish jong, jonk (“young”), Yiddish יונג (yung, “young”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish ung (“young”), Faroese, Icelandic ungur (“young”), Gothic 𐌾𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍃 (juggs, “young”).

* As an English, Scottish, and northern Irish surname, from the adjective young, used to distinguish a younger brother or son. This sense is comparable to the surnames le Yunge, German Jong and Junk, Dutch Jong and de Jongh, French Lejeune and LaJeunesse, assimilated from Dion and Guyon. * As a Chinese surname, from the following: ** Cantonese 楊 /杨 (joeng⁴). Doublet of Yeung. ** Hokkien 楊 /杨 (iông / iâng). Doublet of Yu, Yeo, Yeoh. ** Mandarin 楊 /杨 (yáng). Doublet of Yang.

Words formed from young

Phrases with young

49 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with young

25 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about young

What does young mean?
Young means in the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.
What is young in Hindi?
Young in Hindi is युवा (yuvā), तरुण (taruṇ). See Young meaning in Hindi.
How do you use young in a sentence?
Come skydiving with us. Come on, you're only young once!
What part of speech is young?
Young can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce young?
Young is pronounced /jʌŋ/.

Words near young in the dictionary

  1. Younce
  2. Younces
  3. younder
  4. youness
  5. younesses
  6. young
  7. young adult
  8. young adulthood
  9. young adulthoods
  10. young adults
  11. Young America

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: young (page history and authors); Young (page history and authors); young (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); young (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-young.ogg, En-us-young.ogg.

Cite this entry: “young.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/young. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.