"youth is wasted on the young" meaning in English

See youth is wasted on the young in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Etymology: Often attributed to George Bernard Shaw. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} youth is wasted on the young
  1. The young fail to appreciate or make good use of what they experience. Wikipedia link: George Bernard Shaw Related terms: you can't put an old head on young shoulders Translations (phrase): nuoruus menee hukkaan nuorissa (Finnish), si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait (French), е́сли бы мо́лодость зна́ла, е́сли бы ста́рость могла́ (jésli by mólodostʹ znála, jésli by stárostʹ moglá) (english: lit: if the youth were skillful, if the old age were able) (Russian)
    Sense id: en-youth_is_wasted_on_the_young-en-phrase-XORU-uA- Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for youth is wasted on the young meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Often attributed to George Bernard Shaw.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "youth is wasted on the young",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1983, Lawrence Bush, Bessie, Seaview/Putnam, page 56",
          "text": "Maybe someday the old and the young will live together and work together. But like they say, youth is wasted on the young, and I would also say that wisdom is wasted on the old.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The young fail to appreciate or make good use of what they experience."
      ],
      "id": "en-youth_is_wasted_on_the_young-en-phrase-XORU-uA-",
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "you can't put an old head on young shoulders"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "phrase",
          "word": "nuoruus menee hukkaan nuorissa"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "phrase",
          "word": "si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "note": "not used in Polish",
          "sense": "phrase"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "english": "lit: if the youth were skillful, if the old age were able",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "jésli by mólodostʹ znála, jésli by stárostʹ moglá",
          "sense": "phrase",
          "word": "е́сли бы мо́лодость зна́ла, е́сли бы ста́рость могла́"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "George Bernard Shaw"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "youth is wasted on the young"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Often attributed to George Bernard Shaw.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "youth is wasted on the young",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "you can't put an old head on young shoulders"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1983, Lawrence Bush, Bessie, Seaview/Putnam, page 56",
          "text": "Maybe someday the old and the young will live together and work together. But like they say, youth is wasted on the young, and I would also say that wisdom is wasted on the old.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The young fail to appreciate or make good use of what they experience."
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "George Bernard Shaw"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "phrase",
      "word": "nuoruus menee hukkaan nuorissa"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "phrase",
      "word": "si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "note": "not used in Polish",
      "sense": "phrase"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "english": "lit: if the youth were skillful, if the old age were able",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "jésli by mólodostʹ znála, jésli by stárostʹ moglá",
      "sense": "phrase",
      "word": "е́сли бы мо́лодость зна́ла, е́сли бы ста́рость могла́"
    }
  ],
  "word": "youth is wasted on the young"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.