Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The period of physical and psychological development from the onset of puberty to adulthood.
  • noun A similar period in nonhuman animals, ending at sexual maturity.
  • noun A transitional period of development between an initial or early phase and an established or mature phase.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of growing; specifically, youth, or the period of life between puberty and the full development of the frame, extending in man from about the age of fourteen years to twenty-five, and in woman from twelve to twenty-one: applied almost exclusively to the young of the human race.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state of growing up from childhood to manhood or womanhood; youth, or the period of life between puberty and maturity, generally considered to be, in the male sex, from fourteen to twenty-one. Sometimes used with reference to the lower animals.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The transitional period of physical and psychological development between childhood and maturity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the time period between the beginning of puberty and adulthood
  • noun in the state that someone is in between puberty and adulthood

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English adolescence, from Old French adolescence, from Latin adolescentia, from adolescens ("young"); see adolescent.

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