Youth Juːθ Misspent Time Extra Examples Young Spent

• he had been a talented musician in his youth.
• she regrets that she spent her youth travelling and not studying.
• to relive/recapture your youth
• he joked that being good at cards was the sign of a misspent youth (= having wasted his time when he was young).

youth

1. the time of life when a person is young, especially the time before a child becomes an adult
• He had been a talented musician in his youth.
• She regrets that she spent her youth travelling and not studying.
• to relive/recapture your youth
• He joked that being good at cards was the sign of a misspent youth (= having wasted his time when he was young).

Extra Examples

• He played football throughout his youth.
• He started going clubbing in his early youth.
• He wasted his youth in front of a computer screen.
• His lack of qualifications was taken as a sign of a misspent youth.
• I haven't danced since my youth!
• She contracted the disease during her youth.
• She saw it as a chance to relive her misspent youth.
• She spent much of her youth in Hong Kong.
• nostalgia for her lost youth
2. the quality or state of being young
• She brings to the job a rare combination of youth and experience.
• His youth gives him an advantage over the other runners.

Extra Examples

• Her extreme youth was against her.
• Though no longer in the first flush of youth she's still remarkably energetic.
• You still have your youth—that's the main thing.
• from youth to maturity
• in search of eternal youth
3. young people considered as a group
• the nation’s youth
• Many people think the youth of today are not taught proper standards of behaviour.
• training for unemployed youth
• an increase in youth unemployment
• contemporary youth culture
• a youth worker (= somebody who works with young people)
• Youth and adults tend to see things very differently.

Extra Examples

• the aspirations of modern youth
• youth outreach programs run by the charity
• a program to educate our youth on the causes of health problems
• a crackdown on youth crime
• a club for the gilded youth of London
• The website targets unemployed youth.
• The Royal Family is facing an uncertain future, according to the nation's youth.
4. a young man
• The fight was started by a gang of youths.

Extra Examples

• A 17-year-old youth has been arrested.
• She's going out with some spotty youth.
• He was a callow youth when he joined the newspaper.

Word Origin

• Old English geoguth, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch jeugd, German Jugend, also to young.