to come of age
26
3.7
- phrasal verb
- /kʌm ʌv eɪdʒ/
- When she comes of age, she will be able to vote in the upcoming elections.
- generation came of age
- came of age in the 1960s
- many people who came of age
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Watch on YouTubeAnd when Marianne Moore came of age, that was all starting to change.
- And when Marianne Moore came of age, that was all starting to change.
- And by the time we came of age, that world had fundamentally changed.
- And then it says he, he took up the Thracian rights of plucking the young boy's manhood before they came of age.
- And they also came of age as extremely famous people right before the advent of social media.
Examples
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Until they come of age, someone has to make the decisions.
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When I came of age, I tracked my dad down, and I told him I wanted in.
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Your generation has come of age, facing a challenge like no other generation before you.
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New generations have come of age with no experience in political action.
Academic text (2007) -
And by the time we came of age, that world had fundamentally changed.
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When your son comes of age, he'll assume the throne.
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The science of modern species conservation came of age with the founding of conservation biology in the 1980s.
Academic text (2011) -
When technology came of age in the 1990s, PBL received a huge boost.
Academic text (2011) -
As a young boy growing up in Los Altos, Steve Jobs came of age at the same time as Silicon Valley.
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A generation has now come of age with Kenya's newly won political freedoms and norms.
Academic text (2009)
Synonyms
∞
1.3
To change from a child into an adult
Antonyms
How Mature
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to reach adulthood or full maturity' is directly derivable from combining 'come' (arrive/reach) with 'of age' (being at a certain age); the phrase literally means to 'arrive at the age' when one is an adult. This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically (e.g. Spanish 'llegar a la mayoría de edad'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would very likely infer the meaning.
Etymology
The phrase come of age comes from old laws and ceremonies where a young person would come to a certain age and suddenly get new rights, like inheriting family money or taking on important duties. So, come of age means 'to become an adult' or 'reach full maturity'.