half-grown

A few hours later pugmarks from three cats were spotted together—the mom, her half-grown son and the baby, reunited.

Even Rumpy had maneuvered a half-grown female into combing his scruffy fur.

There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying the cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage.

But if prosperity seemed elusive, teenagers like Shiffler, known at the time as “half-grown boys,” could find manhood in another way: joining one of Philadelphia’s storied volunteer fire companies.

“Half-grown, mischievous and irresponsible boys have been admitted to full membership in some of the companies,” despaired one newspaper.