old
Meanings
- Of an object, concept, relationship, etc., having existed for a relatively long period of time.
- Of a living being, having lived for most of the expected years.
- Of a perishable item, having existed for most of, or more than, its shelf life.
- Of a species or language, belonging to a lineage that is distantly related to others.
- Having been used and thus no longer new or unused.
- Having existed or lived for the specified time.
- Of an earlier time.
- Former, previous.
- That is no longer in existence.
- Obsolete; out-of-date.
- Familiar.
- Being a graduate or alumnus of a school, especially a public school.
- People who are old; old beings; the older generation, taken as a group.
- A person older than oneself, especially an adult in relation to a teenager.
- One's parents.
- A typically dark-coloured lager brewed by the traditional top-fermentation method.
- Initialism of Oxford Latin Dictionary.
- Abbreviation of online dating.
- Abbreviation of obsessive love disorder
- A surname.
- A village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire district, Northamptonshire, England, previously in Daventry district (OS grid ref SP7873).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English old, oold, from Old English ald, eald (“old, aged, ancient, antique, primeval”), from Proto-West Germanic *ald, from Proto-Germanic *aldaz (“grown-up”), originally a participle form, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós (“grown, tall, big”). Cognates Cognate with Scots aald, auld (“old”), Yola yola, yolaw, yold, yole (“old”), North Frisian ool, ual, uuil, uul, üülj (“old”), Saterland Frisian oold (“old”), West Frisian âld (“old”), Alemannic German altu, oalt, oalts, olt, àltà (“old”), Bavarian oid (“old”), Central Franconian alt, aod, auw, oot (“old”), Cimbrian and German alt (“old”), Dutch oud, oudt (“old”), German Low German old, oolt (“old”), Luxembourgish al (“old”), Mòcheno òlt (“old”), Vilamovian aołd (“old”), Yiddish אַלט (alt, “old”), Danish ældre (“elderly”), Faroese eldri (“elder, older”), Icelandic aldinn (“old”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk eldre (“elderly”), Swedish äldre (“elderly”), Crimean Gothic alt (“old”), Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌸𐌴𐌹𐍃 (alþeis, “old”), Latin altus (“high, tall, grown big, lofty”). Related to eld.