teens
noun
Form of teen , plural of teen.
Simple meaning
The time of life between thirteen and nineteen years old.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
teenzIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtinz
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
The time of life between thirteen and nineteen years old; the teenage years.
The time of life between the ages of 12 and 20
The numbers between thirteen and nineteen (inclusive).
The second decade of a century: the 1910s, 2010s, etc. The oneties, the tens.
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: The time of life between thirteen and nineteen years old; the teenage years.
Used this way, teens 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 teens
- “Many important changes happen to people during their teens.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A juvenile between the onset of puberty and maturity.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.