pubescent
8
6.8
- adjective
- /pjuˈbɛsənt/
:
pubescente
- Teenagers, both of them, with the nervous, uptight gestures of boys whose pubescent energies had not yet found a safe outlet.
- pubescent girls
As for sports, it's a much trickier debate given the physical advantages post pubescent boys and men have over women.
- As for sports, it's a much trickier debate given the physical advantages post pubescent boys and men have over women.
Examples
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Matt, we've seen, you know, a huge amount of growth with young girls and pubescent girls wanting to transition.
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The powerful bodily drives of the pubescent girls are stifled.
Academic text (1998) -
Both directed not towards children but mainly towards pubescent girls.
Academic text (1990) -
The 90s were a brutal time to be a pubescent girl.
Blog text (34) -
But during my pubescent years, he loomed over me as a patriarchal elder, a censorious judge.
Academic text (2007) -
Up close, I see Mehli sitting on his stool, conducting an auspicious gathering of pubescent musicians.
Fiction book (2001) -
Many pubescent children experience rapid changes in their bodies as they grow older.
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During the summer camp, pubescent teens engaged in a variety of fun activities together.
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Teachers often notice that pubescent students become more interested in their friends than in schoolwork.
Synonyms
1
7.5
About the time when a young person's body changes and becomes able to have children
How Mature
Surface Forms
Morphology
pubescent = pubesc + ent
Although the word ends in the productive adjectival suffix -ent, the stem pubesc- is a learned Latin stem and the modern meaning 'adolescent' is not inferable from the parts.
Etymology
Pubescent for people is linked to puberty and the root pub-, which suggest 'growing hair' and 'becoming mature'. So a pubescent person is one who is going through the physical changes of puberty.