Youth. n.s. [ẏoᵹuð, Saxon.]
- The part of life succeeding to childhood and adolescence; the time from fourteen to twenty eight.
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, and age no need;
Then these delights my mind might move,
To live with thee, and be thy love. Shakespeare.See how the morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewel of the glorious sun;
How well resembles it the prime of youth,
Trim'd like a yonker, prancing to his love. Shakesp.His starry helm unbuckled show'd him prime
In manhood, where youth ended. Milton.The solidity, quantity, and strength of the aliment is to be proportioned to the labor or quantity of muscular motion, which in youth is greater than any other age. Arbuthnot.
- A young man.
Siward's son,
And many unrough youths even now,
Protest their first of manhood. Shakespeare's Macbeth.If this were seen,
The happiest youth viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book and sit him down and die. Shakesp.About him exercis'd heroick games
Th' unarmed youth of heav'n. Milton.O'er the lofty gate his art emboss'd
Androgeos' death, and off'rings to his ghost;
Sev'n youths from Athens yearly sent, to meet
The fate appointed by revengeful Crete. Dryden.The pious chief
An hundred youths from all his train elects,
And to the Latian court their course directs. Dryden. - Young men. Collectively.
As it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest; as Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne. Ben. Johnson.
The graces put not more exactly on
Th' attire of Venus, when the ball she won,
Than that young beauty by thy care is drest,
When all your youth prefers her to the rest. Waller.