In school, kids are called peers. It's easier to say than contemporaries, but they mean the same thing. Young, old, or in-between, if people are the same age and living in the same era, they're contemporaries.
You might be wondering what the noun contemporaries has to do with the adjective contemporary, which describes things that happen at the same time or in the present. Both words share a common Latin origin — con, meaning "together with," and tempus, meaning "time." Amaze your friends at the art museum by saying, "In this contemporary gallery, the artists who created the paintings are all contemporaries."
