Youngness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition characterized by the qualities associated with youth, including vitality and energy
2. A phase marked by characteristics typical of youth, such as enthusiasm and growth
3. The quality of possessing the traits or vigor typically found in early life

Etymology: "Youngness" is a plain formation: the adjective "young" with the suffix "-ness", which turns an adjective into a noun for a quality. The suffix itself descends from Old English "-nes" and has been attaching to adjectives for over a thousand years, so "youngness" is simply the state of being young, stretched into an abstract noun. The base word "young" comes from Old English "geong" and goes back to a Proto-Germanic root that also gave German "jung", so the two languages share it as an inherited word rather than a borrowing. What makes "youngness" distinctive is the meaning it has taken on: it describes not age itself but the vigor and freshness associated with early life, a sense the suffix allows English to isolate from the plain fact of being young.

Synonyms: youth, juvenility, adolescence, childhood, infancy

Antonyms: oldness, agedness, senescence, maturity, elderliness