youngness

youngness

English

Etymology

young +‎ -ness

Noun

youngness (usually uncountable, plural youngnesses)

1. The state or qualities of being young or youthful; youth.
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, “Puppy Room,”

     The puppy room in the basement brimmed with youngness, with suckings, cuddlings, lickings, squirmings—puppies whose eyes were sealed against seeing, puppies whose ears were sealed against hearing for the first ten days of life […]

   • 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 2, in The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin, OCLC 17841394:

     I was eight years older than Arthur, and our affair had started as a crazy fling with all the beauty for me of his youngness and blackness.