teenage
See also: teen-age
English
WOTD – 31 March 2016
Etymology 1
From -teen + age. First attested in 1921.
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tēnʹāj, IPA(key): /ˈtiːneɪd͡ʒ/
Audio (General Australian): (file) - Hyphenation: teen‧age
Adjective
teenage (not comparable)
- Of or relating to an age between thirteen and nineteen years old.
- Fred's teenage years were the most difficult of times.
- 2014, John Shirley, Her Hunger:
- It was a teenage girl with Cleopatraesque black hair; tight jeans and a tie dyed T-shirt cut off to show her stud-pierced navel.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
of an age between 13 and 19
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Etymology 2
From teen (Kentish variant of tine (“enclose within a wattle fence”)) + -age (suffix forming abstract nouns). First attested circa 1700.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tēnʹĭj, IPA(key): /ˈtiːnɪd͡ʒ/
- Hyphenation: teen‧age
Noun
teenage (uncountable)
Synonyms
- teenet
References
- “teenage n.”, under John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “teen, v.”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.