late bloomer, late developer, precociously

Travel

America’s Outback: Southern Utah

By TONY PERROTTET

In the southern region of the state, 1.9 million acres of natural wonders remain almost as unknown and unexplored as when a precocious teenager helped map them in 1872.

No one who had ever seen Samuel Johnson in his infancy (as Jane Austen might have put it) would have predicted that he would interest a biographer. The son of an obscure provincial bookseller, Johnson was precociously learned but otherwise a late bloomer.

Definition

precocious Hide phonetics
adjective
1 (especially of children) showing unusually early mental development or achievement:早熟
A precocious child, she went to university at the age of 15.
She recorded her first CD at the precocious age of 12.

2 MAINLY DISAPPROVING describes a child who behaves as if they are much older than they are:
a precocious little brat

precociously Hide phonetics
adverb
in a way that is unnaturally advanced or developed

precociousness Hide phonetics
noun [U] (FORMAL precocity)

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late developer UK noun [C] (US late bloomer)
someone who becomes good at something after people usually become good at it:
At school she was a late developer, and it wasn't until she went to university that her talents became apparent.