# What are the origins of the word Tween? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329 "2008-09-12T19:50:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/1 "2008-09-12T19:50:42Z")
Tween is a word used or perhaps even coined by J.R.R. Tolkien to describe Hobbits in their reckless twenties. This is because Hobbits were not considered adults until age 33 and live significantly longer than Men. The [term is now in current usage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preadolescence#Preteen)for kids aged either 10-12 or as low as 8-12. Wiki claims that Tolkien [coined the word](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tween_(hobbit))and it may well be true but I was wondering if any proof of this could be found or if a prior use exists to refute it. I am hoping \*\*samclem \*\*comes to the rescue on this one or anyone else that might now how to determine it. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/2 "2008-09-12T19:53:19Z")
It sounds like it’s derived from “between”, with a sideways nod to “teen”. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/3 "2008-09-12T19:56:45Z")
This is like when the Greeks invented something, and then someone else invented it later, and had never heard of the Greek one. The people who coined ‘tween’ in its current usage were referencing ‘between’ and 'teen, not Tolkien. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/4 "2008-09-12T20:02:59Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > It sounds like it’s derived from “between”, with a sideways nod to “teen”. The original word was a play on Twenties and Teens for Tweens. (at least in Tolkien’s usage/creation.) The current word is apparently as you said. > [@SmackFu](#): > > This is like when the Greeks invented something, and then someone else invented it later, and had never heard of the Greek one. The people who coined ‘tween’ in its current usage were referencing ‘between’ and 'teen, not Tolkien. I believe that is likely correct, I am actually more interested if their are any prior usages before Tolkien. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/5 "2008-09-12T20:04:45Z")
Well, it’s better than calling them betwixters. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/6 "2008-09-12T20:06:25Z")
> [@SmackFu](#): > > This is like when the Greeks invented something, and then someone else invented it later, and had never heard of the Greek one. The people who coined ‘tween’ in its current usage were referencing ‘between’ and 'teen, not Tolkien. Yes, you’re right: Tolkien’s use of “tween” is derived from “twenty” + “teen”, though I don’t find it unlikely that he also had “between” at the back of his mind for that too. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/7 "2008-09-12T20:12:08Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Well, it’s better than calling them betwixters. > > 😃 That would make them some kind of editor, I think! 😛 “Teen” of course comes from “teen-ager” which references adolescents from thir **teen** to nine **teen** , and distinguishes them from younger children, as “boys” and “girls” would not. “Tween” was coined as a parallel to “teen” and means those young people at what sociologists call “older childhood,” i.e., the years be **tween** ten and their teen years. And Tolkien got there by a long and winding road that goes ever on… ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/8 "2008-09-12T21:06:02Z")
Just found this thread, and can’t comment on the Tolkien connection just yet. Haven’t looked. But, the term “tween” to designate kids of 11-13 or so has been used since the late 1970s. “Tween-age” can be found as far back as 1938, with “tween-ager” being found in the late '40s. I’ll snoop around and see about the Tolkien connection. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/9 "2008-09-12T21:10:19Z")
BTW, is this first used by Tolkien around 1954? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/10 "2008-09-12T21:15:34Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Well, it’s better than calling them betwixters. > > 😃 Too late. 🙂 ['Twixt Twelve and Twenty, by Pat Boone](http://www.amazon.com/Twixt-Twelve-Twenty-Pat-Boone/dp/B000O8QY2Q/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221253503&sr=8-10) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/11 "2008-09-12T21:55:14Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > BTW, is this first used by Tolkien around 1954? That is the first printing date, knowing Professor Tolkien, he might of first written the word up to 12 years earlier. Thank you for checking **Sam** , you are always great at tracking down these odd ball things. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/12 "2008-09-12T23:39:03Z")
The OED cites it from the Herald Tribune in 1941: > [@OED](#): > > [1941 N.Y. Herald Tribune 10 Aug. (This Week Mag.) 20/1 (heading) Beauty for tween-teens.] 1946 N.Y. Times 30 Aug. 32/8 (advt.) Model for teen-age dresses, size 12, about 5´3´´: steady. Tweens, Inc. 1964 N.Y. Times 19 May 49/2 The buyers saw outerwear, dresses,..and many other items worn by toddlers, tots, ‘tweens’ and teen-agers. ‘Tweens’ is a term used to describe sizes in pre-teen categories. Note the gaps – it did not catch on at once, and was rarely used until recently. The Tolkien connection seems unlikely since none of the OED citatations are from non-North-American sources. And, certainly, if it had been in LOTR (in this connection), they would have mentioned it. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/13 "2008-09-13T00:05:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Note the gaps – it did not catch on at once, and was rarely used until recently. I wouldn’t make too much of the gap between the 1941 cite and the 1964 cite. That’s just the way the OED does things. I can fill in many a cite between those dates, in ads, stories, etc. ---
**Author:** ![unspun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b9bd4f/32.png) [@unspun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unspun)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/14 "2008-09-13T18:41:49Z")
Not related at all, but you also get a tween in the world of graphic design. It’s the morphing action between two shapes. It’s a funny word when you think about it too much. As is between. ---
**Author:** ![tyciol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@tyciol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tyciol)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/15 "2015-04-02T08:41:23Z")
Epic, I think we 20-29 folk should take this word back, unless there’s any proof of usage prior to 1954 he set the record and taking it back should be a tribute to him. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/16 "2015-04-02T10:12:10Z")
Zombie or no - the Oxford English Dictionary database has an example from 1952, in the title of a book by A A Macfarlan: _New Games for Tween-agers_. > **[World Wide Words: Index](http://www.worldwidewords.org/genindex.htm)** > > Complete index to World Wide Words ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/17 "2015-04-02T13:02:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **tyciol** : > > Epic, I think we 20-29 folk should take this word back, unless there’s any proof of usage prior to 1954… I can understand why you might think there isn’t. Finding such evidence would require a great deal of work, like, say, reading the entire 14-post thread before you posted. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/18 "2015-04-03T00:21:54Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Zombie or no - the Oxford English Dictionary database has an example from 1952, in the title of a book by A A Macfarlan: _New Games for Tween-agers_. > > [World Wide Words: Full index to World Wide Words](http://www.worldwidewords.org/genindex.htm) And, to update the OED, they now have a 1949 book title > [@OED](#): > > tweenager, n. > > Etymology: \< tween-age n. + -er suffix1, probably after teenager n. Compare slightly earlier tween n.2 and earlier tweenie n. > > colloq. (chiefly N. Amer.). > A child who is nearly, or has only just become, a teenager. Cf. tween n.2 > > 1949 M. M. Crunden (title) Disc adventures for tiny, 'tween and 'teen agers; a basic record list for the Children’s Record Loan Library housed in the Glen Ridge Free Public Library, Glen Ridge, New Jersey ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/19 "2015-04-03T01:50:09Z")
Fans of P. G. Wodehouse will know that there’s an even earlier use of “tween”, also derived from “between”, in the obsolete British colloquialism “tweeny” meaning an [in-between maid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_maid), a lowly maid who waits on both the cook and housemaid (or sometimes cook, housemaid, and butler) and whose duties are therefore _in between_ the functions of both or all three. Thus, for instance: 😉 The proceeds of the venture had been split up from the first – in proportions decided upon at a preliminary conference – between myself, the butler, the two parlourmaids, the two housemaids, the cook, the tweeny, and the boy who cleaned the boots. I rang the bell and instructed the butler to summon the shareholders for an extraordinary meeting. And presently in they filed – the boy who cleaned the boots, the tweeny, the cook, the two housemaids, and the butler. The females got chairs, the males stood against the wall, and I sat on the desk, and, after a few formalities, rose and explained the situation which had arisen. Considering what a bolt from the blue it was, I must admit that they all took it pretty well. True, the cook burst into tears and said something about the Wrath of the Lord and the Cities of the Plain – she being a bit on the Biblical side, and one of the housemaids had hysterics. But you have to expect that sort of thing at a critical meeting of the shareholders. Somebody lent the cook a handkerchief, and the tweeny soothed the housemaid, and then we settled down to bend our brains to it. – _Ukridge and the Home from Home_ ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329/20 "2015-04-03T02:45:45Z")
It goes back much further that that in the nautical expression “'tween decks,” i.e. the space between two continuous hulls, found throughout the 19th century. Doyle uses it in the Holmes story, The “Gloria Scott”: > [@](#): > > The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon with thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks of the … Google Books has multiple uses of “tween” in many contexts, all of them shortenings of between. My favorites are the truly awful poetry of Cecile Macneill Thomson in the volume [‘Tween the Gloamin’ and the Mirk: Poems and Songs](https://books.google.com/books?id=9XwOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cecile+Macneill+Thomson&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JP0dVZj9MMSrNpHgg9AP&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Cecile%20Macneill%20Thomson&f=false), the [Klad-ezee “Tweener”](https://books.google.com/books?id=gU0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA111&dq=%22tween%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mvwdVZ3vD8OhgwSW0YCYDQ&ved=0CI4BEOgBMBU#v=onepage&q=%22tween%22&f=false) also from 1949, and the insecticide named Tween. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-tween/463329.md?page=2)