young adult
"young-adult" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“young adult” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person who has achieved the age of majority but whose character and personality are still developing as they gain experience.
Corpus desk
Index EN-young-adult · young adult · English
young adult · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "Y" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | young adult |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “young adult” in English
Rare enough to double-check
young adult is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for young adult, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is young adult, spelled Y-O-U-N-G- -A-D-U-L-T.
Definition
- 1A person who has achieved the age of majority but whose character and personality are still developing as they gain experience.
- 2An adolescent; a genre of writing aimed primarily at this readership.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how young adult appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonyms: AYA; emerging adult
Young adult actress Annie Jay wrote a book called Stars in Your Eyes, Feet on the Ground giving career advice for young adult actors.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.