Cubhood

[f. CUB sb.¹ + -HOOD.] The state or condition of a cub or young animal. Also transf. and fig.

1842.  Mrs. Gore, in Tait’s Mag., IX. 569/1. An appetite that rarely extends beyond the first fortnight of escape from cubhood to ensignhood.

1860.  Wynter, Curios. Civiliz., 95. They [a mastiff and two lions] were brought up together from cubhood.

1870.  Huxley, Lay Serm., xi. (1874), 243. The shaping of the earth from the nebulous cubhood of its youth … to its present form.