youngster

American  

[yuhng-ster] / ˈjʌŋ stər /

noun

• youngsters
  plural

1. a child.

2. a young person.

   Synonyms:

   girl, boy, stripling, lad, youth

3. a young horse or other animal.

4. (in the British navy) a midshipman of less than four years' standing.

5. (in the U.S. Naval Academy) a midshipman in the second year.

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youngster British  

/ ˈjʌŋstə /

noun

1. a young person; child or youth

2. a young animal, esp a horse

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• youngsters
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of youngster

First recorded in 1580–90; young + -ster

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Explanation

Youngster is a good, generic way to talk about a person who's younger than you are, especially a child. If you babysit a neighborhood kid, you can describe him as a youngster. The noun youngster is a casual word meaning "child," and its synonyms include tyke and small fry. Older people sometimes use it to refer to adults who are younger than they are: "You youngsters can keep playing cards, but I'm going to bed!" Youngster has been around since the 1500's, when it replaced the earlier youngling.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

youngster youngsters

But the ending hints at the possibility that the spirit of Jason may have leapt into the youngster.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026

Jim Rigby, who baptized Talarico and married his parents, remembers the youngster as a "calming presence."

From Barron's ● Oct. 19, 2026

Mr. Levin paints the pampered youngster as a “stubbornly self-centered” boy who kept “studiously aloof” from the antislavery activism that young Harvard radicals embraced in the late 1850s—and that Shaw was all but born to.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

I went through this learning experience way back when I was a libertarian youngster and I read “The Triumph of Politics” by President Ronald Reagan’s libertarian budget director, David Stockman.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

If we examine its successive stages, we find that the youngster must develop all the skills that go into adult art: coordination, intellect, personality, imagination, creativity, and aesthetic judgment.

From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson

Middlesbrough have built a reputation in recent years of providing a springboard for promising youngsters.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

The group stemmed from a joke made by Dipke in response to a remark by Chief Justice Surya Kant, who had likened jobless youngsters to "cockroaches".

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

Immediately after his playing career ended, he was invited back to Arsenal to coach their youngsters and instantly knew management and coaching was for him.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

Nonetheless, the team will still feature plenty of intrigue roster-wise, with a mix of youngsters “doing TikToks” and “old heads” trying to keep up, as Garland described it.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026

Some of the youngsters could not land their feet on the ladders and have pulled themselves up rung by rung on their knees, which are bruised and bloodied.

From "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario

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Related Words

• boy
• child
• girl
• juvenile
• kid
• pupil
• student
• teenager
• youth

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