Adultism

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A societal belief that promotes adult authority while disregarding the rights and opinions of younger individuals leads to systematic age-based discrimination
2. The idea that adults hold inherent superiority over youth engenders biases that can limit the agency and visibility of younger populations
3. A belief system that privileges adults over youths creates structures that systematically oppress and silence the perspectives and rights of younger people

Etymology: Adultism is a plain formation: the English noun "adult" with the suffix "-ism," which Greek supplied through "-ismos" and "-izein" and which English uses to name a doctrine or system of belief. The pattern is the same as "racism" or "ageism," and the coinage is modern, built on an existing word rather than inherited from antiquity. "Adult" itself has a more winding route. It traces to Latin "adultus," the past participle of "adolescere," meaning "to grow up," which was built from "ad-" ("to") and "alere" ("to nourish"). The sense of growing or being nourished toward maturity is still visible in the word. Latin's "adolescere" also gave English "adolescent," so the two words are close relatives that took different paths, one as a description of a stage of life and the other as a status. The sense of "adult" as a noun for a grown person, and the suffix that turned it into a term for a belief system, are the two steps that give "adultism" its meaning: an attitude that treats maturity as a claim to authority over the young.