eld
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɛld/
rhymes: -ɛld
Forms: form: elth
form: eild
form: eeld
form: ild
form: yeeld
Etymology: From Middle English elde, from Old English ieldu, eldo, ieldo (“age, period of time; period; time of life, years; mature or old age, eld; an age of the world, era, epoch”), from Proto-West Germanic *aldī, from Proto-Germanic *alþį̄ (“eld, age”), from *aldaz (“grown up, mature, old”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós, from *h₂el- (“to raise, feed”).
Cognate with Scots eild (“age”), North Frisian jelde (“age”), German Älte (“age”), Danish ælde (“eld, age”), Icelandic elli (“eld, age”). Related also to Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌳𐍃 (alds, “generation, age”), Old English alan (“to grow up, nourish”). More at old.
Senses: examples: text: The experience of many years gave old men peculiar qualification for various offices; and elders, or men of a ripe or advanced eld or age, were variously employed under the Mosaic law.
ref: 1868, John Eadie, A Biblical Cyclopædia:
text: Promptly appeared a paragon, aged twenty-five or thereabouts, and exhibiting all the steadiness and serenity of advanced eld.
ref: 1913, Paulist Fathers, Catholic World:
glosses: One's age, age in years, period of life.
examples: text: Dotard, (ſaide he) let be thy deepe aduiſe;
Seemes that through many yeares thy wits thee faile,
And that weake eld hath left thee nothing wiſe,
Els neuer ſhould thy iudgement be ſo frayle,
To meaſure manhood by the ſword or mayle.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 223:
text: Taught he not thee—the man of eld, / Whose eyes within his eyes beheld / Heaven's numerous hierarchy span / The mystic gulf from God to man?
ref: 1847, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Threnody”, in Poems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 245:
text: As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress
Of life's disastrous eld, on blossoming youth
May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth […]
ref: 1904, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sun's Shame, verse 2, lines 1–3:
text: The withered limbs of eld, the thin, gray hair […]
ref: 1912, Herbert Van Allen Ferguson, Rhymes of Eld:
text: the alien wife / No crown of honour was as eld drew on.
ref: 1912, Arthur S[anders], transl. Way, Medea, Heinemann, translation of Medea by Euripides, published 1946, page 329:
synonyms: word: elderliness
word: age
word: chair days
word: codgerhood
word: eld
word: elderliness
word: fogeydom
word: geezerdom
word: golden years
word: old age
word: oldhood
word: senescence
word: senectitude
word: twilight years
word: sunset years
word: vetustity
word: ager
word: antique
word: badge-cove
word: cheeser
word: coffin dodger
word: crinkly
word: eld
word: elder
word: elderly
word: geriatric
word: genarian
word: geezer
word: grayhead
word: greyhead
word: hoarhead
word: mzee
word: old
word: no spring chicken
word: old timer
word: old-timer
word: oldtimer
word: older adult
word: oldie
word: oldster
word: senior
word: senior citizen
word: silver top
word: twirly
word: weazen
word: wrinkly
glosses: Old age, senility; an old person.
synonyms: word: aeon
word: age
word: ages
word: blue moon
word: coon's age
word: crow's age
word: dog's age
word: donkey's years
word: eld
word: eon
word: eternity
word: forever
word: forever and a day
word: interim
word: interlude
word: interval
word: lifetime
word: long haul
word: long run
word: meantime
word: minute
word: month of Sundays
word: spell
word: while
word: years
word: yonks
glosses: Time; an age, an indefinitely long period of time.
examples: text: Once adown the dewy way a youthful cavalier spurred with a maiden mounted behind him, swiftly passing out of sight, recalling to the imagination some romance of eld, when the damosel fled with her lover.
ref: 1891, Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country, Nebraska, published 2005, page 38:
synonyms: word: days of yore
word: days of yore
word: foreday
word: foretide
word: foretime
word: old days
word: past
word: yestertide
word: yestertime
word: yesteryear
word: yore
glosses: Former ages, antiquity, olden times.