adolescent
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
Someone who has reached puberty but is not yet an adult.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
aduhlehsuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ædəˈlɛsənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person who is in adolescence; someone who has reached puberty but is not yet an adult.
adjective
Of, relating to, or at the age of adolescence; at the stage between being a child and an adult.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who is in adolescence; someone who has reached puberty but is not yet an adult.
Used this way, adolescent is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use adolescent
- “The adolescent struggled with many changes during their teenage years.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.