youth

noun

1. (uncountable)The quality or state of being young.

   “Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers.”

   “Feel awfully about Scott... It was a terrible thing for him to love youth so much that he jumped straight from youth to senility without going through manhood. The minute he felt youth going he was frightened again and thought there was nothing between youth and age.”

   “Her youth and beauty attracted him to her.”

2. (uncountable)The part of life following childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to adulthood.

   “Make the most of your youth, it will not last forever.”

   “I made many mistakes in my youth, but learned from them all.”

   “I don't find the pose of careless youth charming and engaging any more than you find the pose of careworn age fascinating and eccentric, I should imagine.”

   “Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.”

3. (countable)A young person.

   “There was a group of youths hanging around the parking lot, reading fashion magazines and listening to music.”

4. (countable)A young man; a male adolescent or young adult.

   “[…]and then a youth appeared—no one quite knew where from or to whom he belonged—but he settled down with them in a happy-go-lucky way, and they all lived together.”

5. (uncountable)Young persons, collectively.

   “The actual brides- and grooms-to-be are not in attendance—many youth would be embarrassed by their parents’ matchmaking efforts, and often do not live in the same city anyway.”