adolescent
/ˌæd.əˈlɛs.ənt/adjective, noun
adolescent is spelled A-D-O-L-E-S-C-E-N-T. The wrong spelling people search most is adolecent: about 130 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 16 of all searches for the word. Adolescent is an adjective meaning “Of, relating to, or at the age of adolescence; at the stage between being a child and an adult”.
How many letters and syllables are in adolescent?
| Letters | 10: A-D-O-L-E-S-C-E-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.8 times per million words; the 13,321st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, adolecent, about 130 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell adolescent?
Adolescent is spelled A-D-O-L-E-S-C-E-N-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 16 of the searches for adolescent in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is adolescent?
Adolescent appears 3.8 times per million words in written English, the 13,321st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce adolescent?
- /ˌæd.əˈlɛs.ənt/
Adolescent has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-adolescent.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of adolescent
- more adolescent comparative
- most adolescent superlative
- adolescents plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does adolescent mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of, relating to, or at the age of adolescence; at the stage between being a child and an adult.
noun
- 1
A person who is in adolescence; someone who has reached puberty but is not yet an adult.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Adolescent in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | adolescent |
| German | heranwachsend, jugendlich, jung, adoleszent, pubertär , Jugendliche |
| Portuguese | adolescente , rapaz, rapariga, moço, moça |
| Spanish | adolescente , muchacho, muchacha, chico, chica |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does adolescent come from?
First attested ?1440, from Middle English adolescent, from Middle French adolescent or directly from Latin adolescentem, accusative form of adolescens, present participle of adolēscere (“to become adult, grow up”), from ad- (“to”) + alēscere (“to grow or become nourished”). The adjective first appeared in 1785.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).