mlad

Mlad is an adjective used in several South Slavic languages and in Bulgarian to denote age and a state of youth, roughly translating to "young" or "youthful." In Serbo-Croatian, it appears in gendered forms: mlad (masculine), mlada (feminine), and mlado (neuter). Bulgarian and Macedonian parallel this with mlad, mlada, mladi, adapting to gender and number. The term is commonly employed to describe people, stages of life, or things associated with youth, as in mlad čovek (a young man) or mlada žena (a young woman). The noun form for the concept of youth is often mladost in Serbo-Croatian and related languages.

Etymology traces mlad to Proto-Slavic *mladъ, a root with cognates across Slavic languages. Related forms include Russian molodoy, Polish młody, and Czech mladý, all sharing the same core meaning and historical development, though each language has its own phonological and morphological evolution.

In usage, mlad functions as a typical descriptive term in everyday speech, literature, and media. It can appear in compounds and set phrases, or as part of expressions referring to youthfulness, vitality, or early life stages. While primarily an ordinary word, the term may also appear in proper names or titles where the concept of youth is central, though such usage depends on context and language. The word is distinct from related nouns such as mladost, which specifically denotes the abstract notion of youth.