grown-up

American  

[grohn-uhp] / ˈgroʊnˈʌp /

adjective

1. having reached the age of maturity.

2. characteristic of or suitable for adults.

   grown-up behavior; grown-up fiction.

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grown-up British  

adjective

1. having reached maturity; adult

2. suitable for or characteristic of an adult

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noun

1. an adult

Other Word Forms

• grown-upness
  noun

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Etymology

Origin of grown-up

First recorded in 1625–35; adj. use of verb phrase grow up

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

grown-up

Gray starred as Billy Batson, a teenager who could transform into a grown-up superhero by saying the magic word “Shazam!”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026

Ms. Merkel, who served as chancellor from 2005 through 2021, was for years treated as the great grown-up of Western politics: steady, pragmatic, reassuringly unexcitable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026

Clara Govier, managing director of the Postcode Lottery, said: "Dolly understood the extraordinary power of something very simple: a child, a grown-up and a book."

From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026

“I don’t feel like a grown-up yet, and now I pay a mortgage, and fix pipes and clean gutters.”

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026

She’d shake her head in that grown-up way whenever students relied only on online search engines and online encyclopedias.

From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas

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