precocious

[flowersa]

I know that "precocious" has to do with little child, but here they say it about someone that he's 24 and a speechwriter, what did they meant?

"What Obama wanted to try out was an honest-togoodness stump speech full of sweeping national themes, crafted by him, Axelrod, and his precocious twenty-fouryear- old speechwriter, Jon Favreau"

[emsr2d2]

24 is, I believe, very young for someone to be the President of the USA's speech writer. Writing speeches would be something that someone develops and hones over many years and normally, we would not expect someone so young to be in such an exalted position. If you look at the main definitions of "precocious", most of them give "unusually advanced or mature in development". Agreed, many of them go on to give "a precocious child" as an example but it doesn't have to refer to a child.