youth
/juːθ/noun
(pl. youths)
1
- in sing. the period between childhood and adult age青（少）年时代, 青春时期：
he had been a keen sportsman in his youth.
他在青少年时代是个积极的运动员。
1.1
- mass noun the state or quality of being young, especially as associated with vigour, freshness, or immaturity年轻; 青春：
she imagined her youth and beauty fading.
她想像自己的青春和美貌逐渐消逝。
1.2
- an early stage in the development of something早期, 初期：
this publishing sector is no longer in its youth.
这个出版部门已不再处于初创期。
2
- a young man男青年, 小伙子：
he was attacked by a gang of youths.
他遭到一伙男青年的袭击。
2.1
- treated as sing. or pl. young people considered as a group总称青年们：
black youth has experienced high levels of racial discrimination
黑人青年遭到严重的种族歧视
as modifier youth culture.青年文化。
WORD TRENDS
Youth was once the ultimate state， envied and romanticized by those who had left it behind， with youths themselves celebrated as the possessors of beauty and potential. But that time has passed， with the Oxford English Corpus telling a sorry tale of the state of today's youth： unemployed， disaffected， nuisance， and drunken are some of the most common modifiers， while almost all of the verbs associated with youths are violent or threatening， with attack， smash， vandalize， intimidate， and assault all scoring highly. And youths cannot simply meet - they congregate， gather， and even plague: intimidating gangs of baseball-capped youths congregating around the newsagents ｜ a shopping parade plagued by nuisance youths. Teenagers fare equally badly， commonly being the object of verbs such as kill， stab， arrest， and molest and described as troubled， rebellious， spotty， or pregnant.
词源
Old English geoguth, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch jeugd, German Jugend, also to YOUNG.