What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Young vs Child - What's the difference?

young | child | Related terms |

In obsolete terms the difference between young and child

is that young is having little experience; inexperienced; unpracticed; ignorant; weak while child is a female infant; a girl.

As nouns the difference between young and child

is that young is people who are young; young beings while child is a daughter or son; an offspring.

As an adjective young

is in the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.

As a verb young

is to become or seem to become younger.

As a proper noun Young

is {{surname|British distinguishing|from=nicknames}} for the younger of two people having the same given name.

young

English

(wikipedia young)

Adjective

(er)
  • In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.
  • * Daniel De Foe
    • while the fears of the people were young
  • *
  • * , chapter=1
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author= Ian Sample
    • , volume=189, issue=6, page=34, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains , passage=Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.}}
  • As if young; having the look or qualities of a young person.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}
  • Of or belonging to the early part of life.
  • (obsolete) Having little experience; inexperienced; unpracticed; ignorant; weak.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
    • Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.

    Synonyms

    * (born not long ago) youthful, junior * (having qualities of a young person) youthful, juvenile * (of or belonging to the early part of life) juvenile * (inexperienced) underdeveloped, undeveloped, immature

    Antonyms

    * (born not long ago) old, aged, grown up, senior, youthless, elderly * (having qualities of a young person) aged, old, youthless, mature, elderly * (of or belonging to the early part of life) senior, mature , elderly * (inexperienced) mature, experienced, veteran

    Derived terms

    * bright young thing * eat one's young * sweet young thing * the night is young * the good die young * with young * young adult * young at heart * young blood * young buck * you can't put an old head on young shoulders * young fogey * young gun * youngish * young lady * younglet * younglike * youngling * youngly * youngness * youngster

    Noun

    (-)
  • People who are young; young beings.
  • The younger generation.
  • Offspring.
    • The lion caught a gnu to feed its young .

    Related terms

    * youth

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To become or seem to become
  • * {{quote-book, 1993, Jacob S. Siegel, A Generation of Change, page=5, pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=i41qoTaUwegC&pg=PA5
    • , passage=The aging (or younging ) of a population refers to the fact that a population, as a unit of observation, is getting older (or younger).}}
  • To cause to appear younger
  • * {{quote-book, 1984, US Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports citation
    • , passage=Medicare data was "younged " by a month to achieve conformity with the conventional completed ages recorded in the census.}}
  • (geology) To exhibit younging
  • * {{quote-journal, 1994, R. Kerrich & D.A. Wyman, The mesothermal gold-lamprophyre association, Mineralogy and Petrology, doi=10.1007/BF01159725
    • , passage=Shoshonitic magmatism younged southwards in the Superior Province, commensurate with the southwardly diachronous accretion of allochthonous subprovinces.}}
  • * {{quote-journal, 2001, date=November 23, Paul Tapponnier et al., Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau, Science citation
    • , passage=The existence of magmatic belts younging northward implies that slabs of Asian mantle subducted one after another under ranges north of the Himalayas. }}

    Statistics

    * 1000 English basic words

    child

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (archaic)

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • A daughter or son; an offspring.
  • (figuratively) An offspring; one born in, or considered a product of the culture of, a place.
  • * 1984 , Mary Jane Matz, The Many Lives of Otto Kahn: A Biography , page 5:
    • For more than forty years, he preached the creed of art and beauty. He was heir to the ancient wisdom of Israel, a child of Germany, a subject of Great Britain, later an American citizen, but in truth a citizen of the world.
  • (figuratively) A member of a tribe, a people or a race of beings; one born into or considered a product of a people.
  • * 2009 , Edward John Moreton Dunsany, Tales of Wonder , page 64:
    • Plash-Goo was of the children of the giants, whose sire was Uph. And the lineage of Uph had dwindled in bulk for the last five hundred years, till the giants were now no more than fifteen foot high; but Uph ate elephants
  • (figuratively) A thing or abstraction derived from or caused by something.
  • * 1991 , (w, Midnight's Children) , (Salman Rushdie) (title)
  • A person who is below the age of adulthood; a minor (person who is below the legal age of responsibility or accountability).
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Joseph Stiglitz)
    • , volume=188, issue=26, page=19, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Globalisation is about taxes too , passage=It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child' s life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.}}
  • (computing) A data item, process or object which has a subservient or derivative role relative to another data item, process or object.
  • * 2011 , John Mongan, ?Noah Kindler, ?Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed
    • The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf).
  • (obsolete) A female infant; a girl.
  • * Shakespeare
    • A boy or a child , I wonder?

    Synonyms

    * (daughter or son) boy, fruit of one's loins, girl, kid, offspring * (young person) bairn, boy, brat, girl, kid, lad, lass * See also

    Antonyms

    * (daughter or son) father, mother, parent * (person below the age of adulthood) adult * parent

    Derived terms

    * boomerang child * childhood * childish * childless * childlike * love-child * lovechild * manchild * middle child * only child * perpetual child * problem child * schoolchild * war child * with child

    Related terms

    * chield, chiel * childe * Childermas

    See also

    * orling

    References

    * Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary (accessed November 2007). * American Heritage Dictionary , Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company (2003). English nouns with irregular plurals 1000 English basic words