What is the Latin word for youth?

The usual Latin words for “youth” are pueritia, adolēscō, iuventa; also cōnfirmō, puer, puella. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.

English → Latin

“youth” in Latin

pueritiaboyhood, childhood, youth; innocence; childishness, callowness adolēscōto grow up, become an adult, mature; to grow, increase, augment, become greater iuventayouth, young manhood cōnfirmōto make firm, establish, re-establish, strengthen, fortify, mature, confirm; to encourage, animate, embolden; persuade; puera child; chit; a boy, lad (typically between ages 7-14 but could be younger) (older than an īnfāns but younger than an a puellagirl, lass, maiden (female child); sweetheart, mistress, beloved maiden; young woman, young wife virgōa maiden, maid; an unmarried young woman or girl (typically nubile, i.e., of marriageable age and social status); a virg iuventūsthe age of youth, youth iuvenisA youth, a young man, young woman, young adult (between ages 20-40), (older than an adulescens but younger than a senior

Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864

youth

The age of youth, pueritia: aetas puerilis (childhood, to the time when the young Roman assumed the toga virilis, in his seventeenth year. From this year to the forty-sixth or fiftieth, persons able to bear arms were called juniores, as opposed to seniores): adolescentia (from the seventeenth to the thirtieth, or even the fortieth year; the period in which the youth is ripening into the man): juventas, aetas integra or confirmata (the vigor of manhood; from the thirtieth to the fortieth or fiftieth year): juventas (youth in its first bloom): juventa (rare in prose; the whole period, years of youth): in one’s youth, in pueritia: in adolescentia (Suet., Claud., 41); but usually by puer or adolescens (when a boy, when quite a youth): from youth up, a puero: a parvo: a parvulo: a pueris: a parvis: a parvulis (the last three of several, or when one speaks of himself in the plur. number); ab adolescentia: ab adolescentulo: from earliest youth, a primis temporibus aetatis: a prima, or ab ineunte aetate: ab initio aetatis: a prima or ab ineunte adolescentia: a primo juventae flore: from tender youth, a prima infantia: a tenero: a teneris, ut Graeci dicunt, unguiculis (ἐξ ὀνύχων, in epistolary style; Cic., ad Div., 1, 6, 2; not to be used in other prose): the flower of youth, flos aetatis. aetas florens: flos juventae: aetas integra: to be in the (first) flower of youth, in (prima) flore aetatis esse: aetate florere: to be stili in the flower of youth, integra esse aetate: to die in the very flower of youth, in ipso aetatis flore exstingui: in primo flore exstingui: medio in spatio integrae aetatis eripi rebus humanis.

Young persons, pueri, puellae (boys, girls): adolescentes, virgines (youths, young women): juventus, juvenes (young persons of both sexes): juniores (young men able to bear arms; opposed to seniores; Vid: above): the youth of both sexes, juvenes utriusque sexus.

Quick answer

What is the Latin word for youth?: The usual Latin words for “youth” are pueritia, adolēscō, iuventa; also cōnfirmō, puer, puella. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.

Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.