61. senior citizen. Names and Labels. The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Columbia Encyclopedia World Factbook American Heritage Coll. A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English.
Some people object to senior citizen as a patronizing or demeaning euphemism.
Though clearly euphemistic in tone, it is not so easy to say exactly what senior citizen is a euphemism for. 1 Senior citizen is a well-established term, first recorded in 1938, that rarely gives real offense and that, when used appropriately, can offer certain advantages over other choices. Unlike expressions based on old or older, senior citizen acknowledges that age is not necessarily the only relevant factor in describing people who are advanced in years. Thus senior citizen denotes not only age but also social or civic status, making it the natural term to use when discussing an older person in a political or social context. It is when senior citizen is used more loosely in contexts other than the societal that it draws the sharpest criticism.