youthful indiscretions
Young and foolish
Youthful indiscretions are foolish or embarrassing acts committed when young—the kind of behavior that seems reasonable at nineteen but mortifying at forty.
The phrase often appears as a diplomatic way to acknowledge past mistakes without dwelling on specifics: He dismissed his arrest record as youthful indiscretions.
Politicians and public figures invoke it to minimize scandals from their past.
- pranksPlayful mischievous acts
- mistakesUnintended wrong actions
- mischiefPlayful troublesome behavior
- errorsUnintentional deviations from correctness
- experimentationSystematic testing of ideas
sowing wild oats · rebellion · redemption · clean slate · adolescence · coming of age · risk-taking · forgiveness · second chances · impulsiveness · consequences · wild oats · naivety · flings · stigma · peer pressure · escapades · teenage rebellion
youthful indiscretionsmidlife crisis
Existential distress at life's halfway point
youthful, youthfully, youthfulness, youths, younger, youngster, youngsters, indiscretion, indiscretions