teen

¹

[ teen ]

adjective

1. teenage.

noun

1. a teenager.

teen

²

[ teen ]

noun

1. Archaic. suffering; grief.
2. Obsolete. injury; harm.

-teen

³

1. a suffix used to form cardinal numerals from 13 to 19.

-teen

¹

combining form

1. ten: added to modified forms of the numbers 3 to 9 to form the numbers 13 to 19

teen

²

/ tiːn /

adjective

1. informal.
   another word for teenage

teen

³

/ tiːn /

noun

1. obsolete.
   affliction or woe

Derived Forms

• -teenth, combining_form:in_adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of teen¹

First recorded in 1940–45; by shortening

Origin of teen²

before 1000; Middle English tene, Old English tēona; cognate with Old Frisian tiona, Old Saxon tiono, Old Norse tjōn

Origin of teen³

Middle English, Old English -tēne, combining form of ten; cognate with Dutch -tien, German -zehn

Word History and Origins

Origin of teen¹

Old English -tēne, -tӯne

Origin of teen²

Old English tēona; related to Old Saxon tiono, Old Frisian tiona injury

Example Sentences

Yes, it was a fairly disappointing year in music—one devoid of Goth teen prodigies, Yeezy, and galvanizing rock anthems.

From The Daily Beast

The reigning queen of hip-hop treads the boards in her teen years.

From The Daily Beast

Growing up as a teen in the 1960s, she had yearned to wear the same clothes her girlfriends wore.

From The Daily Beast

As a teen, she wowed in films like Donnie Darko and Saved!

From The Daily Beast

If the ongoing Hollywood scandal were a teen thriller from the 90s.

From The Daily Beast

In the year 1819 an act of Parliament was proposed limiting the labor of children nine years of age to four-teen hours a day.

From Project Gutenberg

She seemed to be more like a somewhat bashful teen-ager who had been educated in a convent.

From Project Gutenberg

Expone e too versus afore: this present craft ys called Algorismus, in e quych we vse teen signys of Inde.

From Project Gutenberg

But he vndirstondes e first figure at is in e nombur of e forsayd teen figuris, e quych is one of ese.

From Project Gutenberg

I once visited in a home where a teen-age girl was having one of her frequent “tragic” love experiences.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• juvenile
• youngster

Words That Use -teen

What does -teen mean?

The suffix –teen means “ten.” It is used to form cardinal numbers from 13 to 19.

The form –teen comes from Old English –tēne, meaning “ten.” The Latin cognate of –tēne is –decim, from decem, also meaning “ten.” Find out how dozen is related to the combining form –decim at our entry for the word.

Examples of -teen

An example of a word you may have likely encountered that features –teen is fourteen, “a cardinal number, ten plus four.”

As you may have guessed, four– means “the cardinal number four (4).” The suffix –teen means “ten.” Fourteen literally means “four and ten.”

What are some words that use the combining form –teen?

• thirteen
• fifteen
• sixteen
• seventeen
• eighteen
• nineteen

What are some other forms that –teen may be commonly confused with?

• -tene

Not every word that ends with the exact letters –teen, such as mangosteen or canteen, is necessarily using the combining form –teen to denote “ten.” Learn why canteen means “cafeteria” at our entry for the word.

Break it down!

Given the meaning of –teen, what does seventeen literally mean?