In parts of Scotland, in England's North Country, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Norfolk and Cornwall, they still use the old word younker for a youngster; a youth; a child. There are variants, notably yonker, found mainly in Scotland. Watt, the Forfarshire poet, in his Poetic Sketches (1880) has the line, "An ill-deedy younker has plundered his nest." A Berwickshire poet, Calder, wrote in 1897, "My heart never yet has forgot the bright days When as younkers we speeled up the heather-clad braes." John Clare from Northamptonshire, in The Shepherd 's Calender (1827), wrote of a woman who "misses the idle younker from her side".

I have heard the word used in the countryside outside the cathedral city of Norwich. Spenser had the word in The Fairie Queene in 1596: "But that same younker soone was overthrowne." The word is from the Middle Dutch jonck-heer , a young gentleman, according to the lexicographer Hexham.

In Scotland the term younglin (g for youngster has survived. "Round the fire the younglins creep, Content on every side," is a line from a poem by Morison, a contemporary of Burns'. The word is also found as an adjective meaning young, youthful. The Forfarshire poet Watt, mentioned above, gave us this, "Ye younglin' brood, on whom no trace of manhood yet appears." Robert Burns in The Cottar 's Saturday Night has, "Then homeward all take off their sev'ral ways; The youngling cottagers retire to rest."

Youngling is from Old English geongling , a young person.

Youngermer is an adjective meaning younger. It is found still in England's Lakeland, in Cumberland, Yorkshire and Lancashire. "The youngermer bairns, at heeds and cross sat laikin," is a line from Anderson's Ballads, published in Cumberland in 1805. [ Laikin means playing, sporting. The word is as old as Havelok , c. 1300: "The children . . . with him leykeden here fille."] The noun youngermer simply means "young people".

In Yorkshire and in Cornwall youngness is their word for youthfulness. Sutcliffe's Shameless Wayne , published in 1900 in Yorkshire, has this: "I set no store by youngness, Hiram. I allus did say that a wise head war the best thing a man could hev." Quiller-Couch from Cornwall, critic and novelist, has, in Spanish Maid (1898): "Is the maid stealing all the youngness from his face for her own?"

In Scotland they also have, or had, youngsome , youthful. The word is considered obsolete by some lexicographers. "Sic youngsome sangs are sairless frae my mou," is a line from Ross's Helenore , published in 1768. Sairless means "savourless".

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