teen

¹

[teen]

adjective

1. teenage.

noun

1. a teenager.

teen

²

[teen]

noun

1. Archaic.,  suffering; grief.

2. Obsolete.,  injury; harm.

-teen

³

1. a suffix used to form cardinal numerals from 13 to 19.

-teen

¹

combining form

1. ten: added to modified forms of the numbers 3 to 9 to form the numbers 13 to 19

teen

²

/ tiːn /

adjective

1. informal,  another word for teenage

teen

³

/ tiːn /

noun

1. obsolete,  affliction or woe

Other Word Forms

• -teenth combining form

Word History and Origins

Origin of teen¹

First recorded in 1940–45; by shortening

Origin of teen²

before 1000; Middle English tene, Old English tēona; cognate with Old Frisian tiona, Old Saxon tiono, Old Norse tjōn

Origin of teen³

Middle English, Old English -tēne, combining form of ten; cognate with Dutch -tien, German -zehn

Word History and Origins

Origin of teen¹

Old English -tēne, -tӯne

Origin of teen²

Old English tēona; related to Old Saxon tiono, Old Frisian tiona injury

Example Sentences

Else Went’s drama follows the interconnected lives of seven teens in this world premiere directed by Emma Rosa Went.

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In interviews, Welteroth explained that when she and her team took over, they wanted to better represent the diverse perspectives and interests of teens and young adults.

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The teen told Williams he was going to meet friends at the dirt road abutting the store.

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Catholicism is the faith I was baptized in, the one I embraced as a teen and that’s the bedrock for my moral code of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Like, he liked 15-year-old girls… He wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds, but he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were but would look legal to a passerby.”

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• juvenile 
• youngster 

When To Use

What does -teen mean?

The suffix -teen means “ten.” It is used to form cardinal numbers from 13 to 19.The form -teen comes from Old English -tēne, meaning “ten.” The Latin cognate of -tēne is -decim, from decem, also meaning “ten.” Find out how dozen is related to the combining form -decim at our entry for the word.