the.com/yearling
Old enough to have opinions, too young to have sense.
means An animal (or, jokingly, a person or thing) that is one year old — past infancy but nowhere near mature.
from A straightforward 16th-century build: the noun 'year' plus the suffix '-ling,' which marks something young, small, or newly belonging to a category (think 'duckling' or 'underling'). No hidden story here — it's a plainly literal word for a plainly literal stage of life, first used for farm and racing animals before it wandered into joking use for people.
- age range
- one to two years old, species depending
- horse racing use
- all yearlings share January 1st as official birthday
- awkward phase
- grown body, undercooked brain, maximum chaos
- etymology
- literally just year plus ling, no frills