juvenophilia means an admiration for or obsession with young people. It carries an Arena rating of 1195, earned across 12 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, juvenophilia ranks #253 of 1,108 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #351 of 1,133 for Most Storied Words, #353 of 1,131 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #360 of 1,126 for Most Malleable Words.
Why “juvenophilia” is a great word
An admiration for or obsession with youth and young people. Coined in the 20th century from the Latin *iuvenis* ("young") and the Greek *-philia* ("love of, fondness for"). Unlike "pedophilia," which denotes a clinical, pathological sexual attraction to children, or "nepotism," a transactional favoritism based on kinship, juvenophilia is a diffuse cultural veneration of the new and unburdened. It is the advertisement's perpetual smile, the casting director's unerring preference for unlined faces, and the quiet, personal pang one feels watching a group of students laugh with a certainty the world has not yet eroded—a love not for any particular young person, but for the brilliant, brittle idea of youth itself.
Etymology
From juveno- + -philia.
noun
- An admiration for or obsession with young people.“Do we need another waist-deep wallow in the 1960s, ensconcing us cheek by jowl with Frank Rizzo and Eldridge Cleaver, Sam Yorty and Mark Rudd, Lester Maddox and Herbert Marcuse and other long-forgotten bit players in a period drama? Do we need to be reminded of that era’s gaseous juvenophilia, like Time magazine’s celebration of Americans 25 or younger as 1967’s “Man of the Year”[?]”
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