Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood (maturity). Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.
Usage
Around the world, the terms "youth", "adolescent", "teenager", "kid", and "young person" are interchanged, often meaning the same thing, occasionally differentiated. Youth generally refers to a time of life that is neither childhood nor adulthood, but rather somewhere in-between. Youth also identifies a particular mindset of attitude, as in "He is very youthful". The term youth is also related to being young.
- "This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease." - Robert Kennedy
Youth is an alternative word to the scientifically-oriented adolescent and the common terms of teen and teenager. Another common title for youth is young person or young people.
But ancient insolence is wont to bear an insolence that has its youth among human miseries, sooner or later, when the fixed time of birth is come.
— Aeschylus (525–456 B. C.)
August 12th was declared International Youth Day by The United Nations.
Age limits
The age in which a person is considered a "youth", and thus eligible for special treatment under the law and throughout society varies around the world.
- "Youth... those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years." - United Nations General Assembly
- "...youth ... comprises persons between the age of 15 and 24. It is used by ... the World Bank" - World Bank.
- The Commonwealth Youth Programme works with "young people (aged 15-29)."
- "A person... under 21 years of age." - National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
- "People between the ages of 14 and 21." - Wilson School District
- "Youth; an individual from 13 through 19 years of age." - Alternative Homes for Youth, Inc
- "Youth is defined as any member of society between the ages of 15 and 34" - World Health Organization
- "30 seats are being reserved in the, for young Moroccans (under 40)."
Man’s own youth is the world’s youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth’s granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)