The Greek noun neotes means youth, youthfulness, or the period of being young. It refers to the time of life characterized by energy, inexperience, and formation — roughly from childhood into early adulthood.
Neotes appears in 1 Timothy 4:12 in Paul's famous charge to Timothy: 'Don't let anyone look down on you because of your youth (neotetos).' The passage acknowledges a real social dynamic — younger leaders face resistance — while refusing to capitulate to ageism. Paul's solution is not self-assertion but self-demonstration: 'set an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.' Neotes is also the time when spiritual formation is most impressionable (Ecclesiastes 11:9; 12:1: 'Remember your Creator in the days of your youth'). The young man who addressed Jesus in Mark 10:20 kept the commandments 'from my youth (neotetos)' — moral formation begun early. The word invites intentional investment in younger generations before the world forms them first.