different between juvenile vs unfledged

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin iuven?lis (“youthful; juvenile”), from iuvenis (“young; a youth”) + -?lis (“suffix forming adjectives indicating a relationship or a pertaining to”). Iuvenis is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *h?yuh?en- (“young”), from *h?óyu (“long life; lifetime”) (from *h?ey- (“age; life”)) + *h?én (“in”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?d?u?v?na?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?d?u?v?na?l/, /?d?u?v?n?l/
• Hyphenation: ju?ven?ile

Adjective

juvenile (comparative more juvenile, superlative most juvenile)

1. Young; not fully developed.
2. Characteristic of youth or immaturity; childish.

   Synonyms: (colloquial) juvey, milky, puerile; see also Thesaurus:childish

Antonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

juvenile (plural juveniles)

1. A prepubescent child.
2. A person younger than the age of majority; a minor.

   Synonyms: (dated) infant, (colloquial) juvie
3. (criminal law) A person younger than the age of full criminal responsibility, such that the person either cannot be held criminally liable or is subject to less severe forms of punishment.
4. (literature) A publication for young adult readers.
5. (theater) An actor playing a child's role.
6. (zoology) A sexually immature animal.
7. A two-year-old racehorse.
   • 1972, Edward Samuel Montgomery, The Thoroughbred (page 449)

     Even more incredible is the legion of two-year-olds who win handsomely as juveniles and then disappear from the racetrack.

   • 2005, Ken McLean, Designing Speed in the Racehorse (page 206)

     Professional trainers foster young horses with obvious potential. Instance the way Sir Michael Stoute uses patience to bring along his two-year-old colts and fillies at Newmarket, or the careful approach taken with juveniles by that wonderful conditioner Charlie Whittingham in California.

   • 2012, Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing (page 6)

     Thereafter, males aged two to four are colts, females are fillies, racing two-year-olds are sometimes referred to as juveniles, and animals still running at five, the age of thoroughbred maturity, or older, are horses or mares according to gender.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• juvenile (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin

Adjective

juven?le

1. nominative neuter singular of juven?lis
2. accusative neuter singular of juven?lis
3. vocative neuter singular of juven?lis

English

Etymology

un- +? fledged

Adjective

unfledged (not comparable)

1. Not having feathers; (of a bird) not yet having developed its wings and feathers and become able to fly.

   Synonym: callow

   Antonym: fledged

   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act III, Scene 3^[1]

     […] we, poor unfledged,

     Have never wing’d from view o’ the nest, nor know not

     What air’s from home.

   • 1818, Jane Austen, Persuasion, Chapter 21,^[2]

     “The little Durands were there, I conclude,” said she, “with their mouths open to catch the music, like unfledged sparrows ready to be fed. They never miss a concert.”

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “The Bean-Field,”^[3]

     The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.

   • 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part 2, Chapter 28,^[4]

     “Boy and girl. Aren’t they beauties?” said the proud papa, beaming upon the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels.

2. (figuratively) Not yet fully grown or developed; not yet mature.
   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act I, Scene 2,^[5]

     Temptations have since then been born to’s; for

     In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;

     Your precious self had then not cross’d the eyes

     Of my young play-fellow.

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Section 5.5,^[6]

     Besides, it is not possible to give a young person a just view of life; he must have struggled with his own passions before he can estimate the force of the temptation which betrayed his brother into vice. Those who are entering life, and those who are departing, see the world from such very different points of view, that they can seldom think alike, unless the unfledged reason of the former never attempted a solitary flight.

   • 1848, James Russell Lowell, “Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades” in Poems. Second Series, Cambridge: G. Nichols, p. 38,^[7]

     Yet they who watch your God-compelled return

     May see your happy perihelion burn

     Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.

   • 1946, Olaf Stapledon, Death into Life, Chapter 4,^[8]

     Fantasy, sheer fantasy? Perhaps! But when we think of time and of eternity, intelligence reels. The shrewdest questions that we can ask about them are perhaps falsely shaped, being but flutterings of the still unfledged human mentality.

3. (figuratively) Inexperienced, like a tyro or novice.

   Antonym: experienced

   • 1898, Gertrude Atherton, The Californians, Book I, Chapter 23,^[9]

     He had long since determined that Magdaléna should marry no one of the sons of his moneyed friends, nor yet any of the sprouting lawyers or unfledged business youths who made up the masculine half of the younger fashionable set.

   • 1915, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island, Chapter 37,^[10]

     Aunt Jamesina had a proper respect for the cloth even in the case of an unfledged parson.