teenage
- 1Relating to an age between thirteen and nineteen years old, or to people of that age.
The clinic offers counseling services aimed at teenage patients.
Teenage rebellion is a familiar theme in coming-of-age novels.
Similaradolescent, teen, juvenile
Oppositeadult
Note
A twentieth-century coinage, first recorded in 1921, built from the -teen that ends thirteen through nineteen plus age. It classifies rather than grades, so one speaks of teenage years or a teenage girl but never of something "more teenage." Josie Ensor's 2025 phrase "teenage and twentysomething" shows it pairing naturally with other age labels. The same spelling belongs to an old Kentish word for brushwood, which has an entirely separate history.
- 2Cut brushwood used for building or repairing fences and hedges.
Note
Here the -age is the suffix that forms abstract nouns, not the word age. Teen was a Kentish form of tine, "to enclose within a wattle fence," so teenage named the material of fencing itself. First recorded around 1700, it belonged to Kent dialect and is now obsolete. It takes no plural, and it has no connection to the adjective for adolescence.
Showing meanings only.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with teenage, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origins
This word was formed from '-teen' (as in the teen years) plus 'age', and was first attested in 1921.
This sense comes from 'teen', a Kentish variant of 'tine' ('to enclose within a wattle fence'), combined with the suffix '-age', which forms abstract nouns. It was first attested around 1700.