young Turk

• Young Turk

Calque of French Jeune-Turc, from which also Turkish Jön Türk has been borrowed.

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young Turk (plural young Turks)

1. (historical) From the late-19th to the early-20th century, a member of a movement that campaigned for reform of the Ottoman Empire.
2. (idiomatic, by extension) A young person who agitates for political or other reform; a young person with a rebellious disposition.
   • 1885, Horatio Alger, chapter 14, in Hector's Inheritance:

     "What! Roscoe?" inquired the principal.
     "Yes."
     "Is he in any mischief?"
     "Mischief? I should say so! Why, he's a regular young Turk."
     "A young Turk? I don't think I understand you, James."
     "I mean, he's a young ruffian."

   • 1966 September 30, “Jazz: Man with a Brain”, in Time:

     He arrives at a time when jazz's discontented Young Turks have disdainfully turned away from their audiences and gone off to explore the way-out.

• Often used in the plural form.