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The state or quality of being mature; ripeness; full development; as, the maturity of corn or of grass; maturity of judgment; the maturity of a plan.

lly developed; unripeness; incompleteness. When the world has outgrown its intellectual immaturity. Caird.

The quality or state of being premature; early, or untimely, ripeness; as, the prematurity of genius.

Any fruit or produce that does not come to maturity, or anything which in its progress, before it is matured or perfect; a complete failure; as, his attempt. proved an abortiori.

from childhood to manhood or womanhood; youth, or the period of life between puberty and maturity, generally considered to be, in the male sex, from fourteen to twenty-one. Sometimes used with reference to the lower animals.

Growing; advancing from childhood to maturity. Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong, Detain their adolescent charge too long. Cowper.

Having arrived at maturity, or to full size and strength; matured; as, an adult person or plant; an adult ape; an adult age.

wrongly called Aloe. It is from ten to seventy years, according to climate, in attaining maturity, when it produces a gigantic flower stem, sometimes forty feet in height, and perishes. The fermented juice is the pulque of the Mexicans; distilled, it yields mescal. A strong thread and a tough paper are made from the l…

espiration; and by increasing in motive power or active aggressive force with progress to maturity.

e more. Luke xii. 48. An exigence of state asks a much longer time to conduct a design to maturity. Addison.

The time of maturity or decline; latter portion; third stage. Dr. Preston was now entering into the autumn of the duke's favor. Fuller. Life's autumn past, I stand on winter's verge. Wordsworth.

ent or suture, without tearing, as in the opening of pods, or the bursting of capsules at maturity so as to emit seeds, etc.; also, the bursting open of follicles, as in the ovaries of animals, for the expulsion of their contents.

which animal and vegetable organisms undergo in their passage from the embryonic state to maturity, from a lower to a higher state of organization.

A genus of long, slender, nematoid worms, parasitic in insects until near maturity, when they leave the insect, and live in water, in which they deposit their eggs; -- called also hair eel, hairworm, and hair snake, from the absurd, but common and widely diffused, notion that they are metamorphosed horsehairs.…

Immaturity; unripeness; as, the greenness of fruit; inexperience; as, the greenness of youth.

ut of commercial considerations. A. Hamilton. -- To grow up, to arrive at full stature or maturity; as, grown up children. -- To grow together, to close and adhere; to become united by growth, as flesh or the bark of a tree severed. Howells.

n animal or a vegetable body; the development from a seed, germ, or root, to full size or maturity; increase in size, number, frequency, strength, etc.; augmentation; advancement; production; prevalence or influence; as, the growth of trade; the growth of power; the growth of intemperance. Idle weeds are fast in growth…

The state or quality of being immature; immaturity. Boyle.

The state of being undigested; unripeness; immaturity. [Obs.] Bacon.

Remaining closed at maturity, or not opening along regular lines, as the acorn, or a cocoanut.