Added 6 October 2026

age

/eɪd͡ʒ/ symbol

In Latin: aetas Wiktionary

symbol Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about age at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

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)
The state of being old; the latter part of life.
Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age, sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
Any particular stage of life.
the age of infancy

To grow aged; to become old or older; to show marks of age.
He grew fat as he aged.
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.
To cause to grow old; to impart the characteristics of age to.
Grief ages us.

From Middle English age, Old French aage, eage, edage, from an assumed Vulgar Latin *aetāticum, derived from Latin aetātem, itself derived from aevum (“lifetime”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu- (“vital force”). Compare French âge. Displaced native Old English ieldu. The verb is from Middle English agen, from the noun. Originally found mostly as a participial adjective, probably an adjective in -ed, derived from the noun, reanalyzed to create a verb; perhaps modeled on such pairs as Latin senēscō (seneō; verb) / senex (adjective) and Middle French vieillir (verb) / vieil (adjective). Also compare Old French se aagier, eogier (“become of age”).