emerging adult

English

Noun

emerging adult (plural emerging adults)

1. (psychology, sociology, medicine, often attributive) In some conceptions of human life phases, a member of the subset of adults who, although postadolescent (having passed the age of majority), retain some aspects of mental or emotional immaturity.

   Hypernym: adult (coordinate in some vague assertions)

   Coordinate terms: adolescent, middle-ager, older adult

   Near-synonym: young adult

Usage notes

Not consistently and clearly differentiated from young adults; sometimes asserted to be not adult, usually in muddled ways that do not then also precisely define when or how adulthood begins, do not offer any coordinate term (whether full-fledged adult or otherwise), and do not accord with legal definitions of adulthood.