adolescence

From Middle English adolescence, from Old French adolescence, from Latin adolēscentia, from adolēscēns (“young”); see adolescent.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌædəˈlɛsəns/

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adolescence (countable and uncountable, plural adolescences)

2. The transitional period of physical and psychological development between childhood and maturity, beginning at the onset of puberty and with an endpoint defined either legally (at the age of majority, such as 18 in many jurisdictions) or psychocognitively (at various ages, depending on individual experience).

   Synonym: hog age (US, rare, dated, informal)

   Coordinate terms: childhood, preteenhood, young adulthood, adulthood, middle age, seniorhood, elderhood

   Near-synonyms: teenagehood, teenhood, teenagerhood, teenagedom, teenagerdom, teendom

   During adolescence, the body and mind go through many complex changes, some of which are difficult to deal with.

   • 2020 August 5, Francesca Spinelli, “Meet David: born in France, raised in Belgium, facing removal to the DRC”, in The Guardian‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 January 2021:

     So lawyers started filing separate asylum requests for the children, arguing that reintegrating in countries they barely knew, after spending their childhood or adolescence in Belgium, would not only be impossible but would expose them to serious risks.

• While adolescence is mostly interchangeable with teendom and teenhood, as it happens during ages ending in -teen, this correspondence is not absolute, so adolescence can be understood as a broader or narrower term depending on the context.

• adolescent

• “adolescence”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “adolescence”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Learned borrowing from Latin adulēscentia. First attested in the 20th century.^[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈadolɛst͡sɛnt͡sɛ]
• Hyphenation: ado‧les‧cen‧ce

adolescence n

1. adolescence

   Synonym: dospívání

• “adolescence”, in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu (in Czech)
• “adolescence”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

Learned borrowing from Latin adulēscentia.

• IPA^(key): /a.dɔ.lɛ.sɑ̃s/ ~ /a.dɔ.le.sɑ̃s/

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adolescence f (plural adolescences)

1. adolescence, teenage years, teenagehood

• crise d'adolescence
• préadolescence

• adolescent

• puberté

• “adolescence”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Late 13th century, borrowed from Latin adolescentia.

adolescence oblique singular, f (oblique plural adolescences, nominative singular adolescence, nominative plural adolescences)

1. adolescence