Very young to be so loveless still (5)

I believe the answer is:

seven

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'very young' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?

'so loveless still' is the wordplay.
'so loveless' becomes 's' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'still' becomes 'even' (synonyms).
's'+'even'='SEVEN'

'to be' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for seven that I've seen before include "VII" , "See 1" , "Number of Wonders of the World" , "So many ages of man (AYLI)" , "Little friends of ..." .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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