Usually in pl. teens. [The element -TEEN in numerals treated as a separate word, usually in plural.]
1. pl. The years of the life of any person (rarely, of the age of anything) of which the numbers end in -teen, i.e., from thirteen to nineteen; chiefly in phrases in, out of one’s teens.
1673. Wycherley, Gentl. Dancing Master, IV. i. Your poor young things, when they are once in the teens, think they shall never be married.
1693. Humours Town, 98. A young Girl in the Teens.
1709. E. W., Life Donna Rosina, 10. Her Daughter, who was by this time come into the Teens.
1763. Churchill, Proph. Famine, 3. The stripling raw, just enter’d in his teens.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, I. i. ¶ 1. A chamber-maid who was not exactly in her teens.
1818. Keats, Lett., Wks. 1889, III. 101. Your friendship for me is now getting into its teens.
1859. J. G. Edgar, Wars Roses, xliv. 386. That son of Earl Rivers who, while in his teens, had wedded a Dowager Duchess in her eighty-second year.
1883. Fortn. Rev., Feb., 296. The Republic, in the art of government … is still in its teens.
β. sing. 1834. T. Hawkins, Mem. Ichthyosauri, 30. I was too young … and as inquisitive as a boy in his first ‘teen’ could possibly be.
attrib. 1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. viii. 252. It must have been about the beginning of the teen period.
b. transf. pl. Young persons in their teens.
1820. I. Taylor (title), Advice to the Teens; or, Practical Helps to the Formation of Character.
2. The numbers of which the names end in -teen.
1885. Blackw. Mag., April, 548/1. We are to change the small hours of our afternoons into teens and twenties.
Hence Teener, one in his or her teens; Teenhood, the state of being in one’s teens; Teening a., in one’s teens; Teenish a., characteristic of persons in their teens, youthful.
1894. Blackmore, Perlycross, 242. This rigid man was wound round the finger of a female *‘teener’—as the Americans beautifully express it.
1893. Scott. Leader, 14 Aug., 2. Whilst in her *teenhood she was placed with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean.
1818. Religio Clerici, 169. *Teening misses, for a day-school prize, Transpose the types, and mar the prophecies.
1811. Morn. Post, 20 Dec. Their *teenish tricks, at fifty-six, all wise folks should forego.
1818. Blackw. Mag., IV. 256. She’s just of age! shall teenish frailties wrong her?
1860. Mrs. H. R. Schoolcraft, Black Gauntlet, vi. 131. But when a widower marries a dashing, merry little coquette of sixteen, God have mercy on the children of his former wife! for such a teenish step-mother can think only of her own happiness as a bride.
