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adult

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

An animal that is full-grown.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhduhlt

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

əˈdʌlt

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. An animal that is full-grown.

  2. Any mature animal

  3. A person who has reached the legal age of majority.

adjective

  1. Intended for or restricted to adults rather than children due to size, maturity, knowledge level, judgement, etc.

  2. Fully grown.

  3. Containing situations or discussions intended primarily for adults, such as serious crime, illicit drug use, extramarital affairs, etc.

  4. of a beverage

    Containing alcohol, intended for consumption only by adults.

  5. Containing excessive vulgar or profane speech, text or images, intended only for adults.

  6. Containing material of an explicit sexual nature; pornographic.

verb

  1. intransitiveslang

    To behave like an adult.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: An animal that is full-grown.

Used this way, adult 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 adult

  • “An adult needs to supervise children when they are swimming alone.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Intended / containing

adult educationyoung adultnormal adult

Other combinations

adult maleadult femaleadult lifeadult populationadult world

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • adulthoodnounDerived noun

    The period of time in your life after your physical growth has stopped and you are fully developed.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • adult male bodynounCompound term

    The body of an adult man.

  • adult-onset diabetesnounCompound term

    Mild form of diabetes mellitus that develops gradually in adults.

  • adult-onset diabetes mellitusnounCompound term

    Mild form of diabetes mellitus that develops gradually in adults.

  • adult respiratory distress syndromenounCompound term

    Acute lung injury characterized by coughing and rales.

  • adult toothnounCompound term

    Any of the 32 teeth that replace the deciduous teeth of early childhood and (with luck) can last until old age.

  • adult educationnounCompound term

    A course (via lectures or correspondence) for adults who are not otherwise engaged in formal study.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: animal that is full-grown

grownup

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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.