age

Noun

1. The amount of time that some being has been alive, or that some thing has been in existence, as measured from its birth or origin until the present or until some other given reference point. (Often measured in number of years; alternatively in months, days, hours, etc.; see also the usage notes)
   • "What is the age of your oldest child?" — "He's ten." (ten years old)
   • What were their ages at the time of their marriage?
   • We can determine the age of fossils using radiometric dating.
2. The state of being old; the latter part of life.
   • Feel awfully about Scott... It was a terrible thing for him to love youth so much that he jumped straight from youth to senility without going through manhood. The minute he felt youth going he was frightened again and...
   • Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age, sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

   Synonyms: old age dotage senility seniority age chair days codgerhood eld elderliness fogeydom geezerdom golden years oldhood senescence senectitude superannuation twilight years sunset years vetustity

   Antonyms: youth

3. Any particular stage of life.
   • the age of infancy
4. The time of life at which some particular power or capacity is understood to become vested.
   • the age of consent; the age of discretion
5. Maturity; especially, the time of life at which one attains full personal rights and capacities.
   • to come of age; she is now of age

   Synonyms: majority adulthood

6. A particular period of time in history, as distinguished from others.
   • the golden age of cinema; the first age of colonialism; a bygone age
   • Encircling the marble altar was a congregation of leering shamen. Eerie chants of a bygone age, originating unknown eons before the memory of man, were being uttered from the buried recesses of the acolytes' deep lings...
   • The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first...

   Synonyms: epoch time era age cycle day generation Great Year interval period Platonic year

   1. The time or era in history when someone or something was alive or flourished.

      • the age of Pericles; the age of the dinosaurs

      Synonyms: epoch time era age cycle day generation Great Year interval period Platonic year

   2. (countable) A great period in the history of the Earth.

      • The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age.

      Synonyms: epoch time era age cycle day generation Great Year interval period Platonic year

   3. (countable, geology) The shortest geochronologic unit, being a period of thousands to millions of years; a subdivision of an epoch (or sometimes a subepoch).

      • The Tithonian Age was the last in the Late Jurassic Epoch.

      Synonyms: epoch time era age cycle day generation Great Year interval period Platonic year

7. One of the twelve divisions of a Great Year, equal to roughly 2000 years and governed by one of the zodiacal signs; a Platonic month.
   • Mr Lewis says we are living in the age of Aquarius, which means that the world is at present passing through the zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the airy constellation. - 1911 April 10, The Evening News, Sydney, page 8,...
8. A period of one hundred years; a century.

   Synonyms: centennium

9. A generation.
   • There are three ages living in her house.
10. A long time.
    • It’s been an age since we last saw you.

    Synonyms: eternity yonks aeon age ages blue moon coon's age crow's age dog's age donkey's years eld eon forever forever and a day interim interlude interval lifetime long haul long run meantime minute month of Sundays spell

11. Lifespan, lifetime; the total time that some being is alive from birth to death (or some category of beings, on average).
    • The age of man is three score years and ten.
    • Thrice the age of a dog is that of a horse.
    • Done at London, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, in the fifty-eighth year of my age.
12. The entitlement of the player to the left of the dealer to pass the first round in betting, and then to come in last or stay out; also, the player holding this position; the eldest hand.

Verb

1. To grow aged; to become old or older; to show marks of age.
   • He grew fat as he aged.
   • I am aging; that is, I have a whitish, or rather a light-coloured, hair here and there. Sober thinking brings them - 1824, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations:
   • However, if you have the misfortune of being a child actor born on the show, watch out. […] The point is these kids age quickly. - 1998, Joe Malarkey, “Soap Operas”, in It’s Not the Fall That Kills You: Laughing All the...

   1. (intransitive, of a statement, prediction, etc.) To suffer the passage of time so as to later be viewed or turn out in a certain way.

      • His prediction that we didn't stand a chance hasn't aged well, now that we've won the cup.
      • The sitcom was made in the 1970s and its casual sexism has not aged well.
2. To cause to grow old; to impart the characteristics of age to.
   • Grief ages us.
   • To look at the hair by itself you'd say it was actually quite pretty, but on her head the gray sure ages her. - 1998 Fall, Mare Freed, “Aluhana”, in The Antioch Review, volume 56, number 4:

   1. To allow to mature.

      • We age the whiskey for five years.

   2. To treat or tamper with in order to give a false appearance of age.

      • This clock is modern, but it has been deliberately aged in an attempt to make it seem antique.
3. To determine the age of (the length of time that something has been alive or in existence).
   • There are several ways to age trees.
4. To indicate or reveal that (a person) has been alive for a certain period of time, especially a long one.
   • I clearly remember hearing the news of Kennedy's assassination. That ages me.
   • Mr. [David] Brinkley started out with network news. We got our news- I think it was the Huntley-Brinkley Report. I'm probably aging myself now, okay? - 1992 June 14, This Week with David Brinkley (television...
5. To allow (something) to persist by postponing an action that would extinguish it, as a debt.
   • Money's a little tight right now. Let's age our bills for a week or so.
6. To categorize by age.
   • One his first assignments was to age the accounts receivable.

Wikipedia

age